The white steamer (film)

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Movie
German title The white steamer
Original title Белый пароход
Country of production USSR ( Kyrgyzstan )
original language Kyrgyz
Publishing year 1976
length 99 minutes
Rod
Director Bolotbek Shamschiev
script Tschingis Aitmatow
Bolotbek Shamschiev
production Kyrgyz Film , Frunze
music Alfred Schnittke
camera Manasbek Mousayev
A. Dsamgerchinov
A. Levkowitsch
occupation

The white steamer (original title: Белый пароход Bely parochod ) is a Soviet feature film that was shot in the Kyrgyz SSR under the direction of Bolotbek Shamschijew in 1976 based on the novel of the same name by Chingis Aitmatov from 1970.

action

Grandfather Momun, warm-hearted, good person who lives in the mountains of a nature reserve of Tianchan -Gebirges in Kyrgyzstan with his daughter Bekei whose husband Oroskul, who as forester works, and his second wife grandmother Karys. Maltschik is Momun's 7-year-old grandson, whom he has to look after because his other daughter lives with a new man in the city and Maltschik only bothers him. He was told that his father worked as a sailor on a white steamer on the nearby Issyk-Kul Lake . In addition, the forest worker Seidachmat and his wife Guldschamal still live on the secluded property.

One day the grandfather rides with the boy to the next town to pay his last respects to a friend. On the way back they look at the school that Maltschik will go to from autumn onwards and grandfather promises to always bring him there by horse and pick him up again. Momun buys the boy a briefcase for school enrollment from a traveling dealer, which he really enjoys, which he has to show everyone at home immediately. For his grandmother, a contentious woman, this is just a waste of money, because a bag that he sewed himself from scraps of fabric would have done it too. She prefers to send the boy out into the meadow to tend a calf. But Maltschik, who doesn't get together with his peers and almost always has to play with himself, first wants to show all the animals, trees, fantasy figures and clouds in the area the gift and then decides to take the white steamer with binoculars on the lake looking for a swim in the mountain stream.

At home he has to protect himself again from the evil and tyrannical Uncle Oroskul. He is dissatisfied with his life, he was a director before. But he is even more frustrated because his wife Bekei is not giving him a child. Therefore, he drinks a lot of alcohol and often hits her. At such moments, the boy always flees into his fantasy world. This also includes the story of the white horned deer mother, often told by his grandfather, who once found an infant lying in its cradle floating helplessly on a river during an attack on the Kyrgyz tribes, in which all but one were killed. until he was rescued by her on the bank and raised like a son of his own. When he grew up, he was married to one of their daughters, so the Kyrgyz people could be saved from extermination.

In the fall, Oroskul does crooked business again by cutting down and selling protected trees in the forest. To do this, he needs Momun's help, but he first wants to take the boy to school on his first day. After his return he helps his son-in-law transport the tree trunks, but when Momun wants to pick up his grandson again, the Oroskul does not allow it and even beats him. Now the grandfather wants to finally pick up the boy from school, but he is no longer there and has sought help from his friend, the driver Kulubek. Grandfather finds him there and rides him home. Back here, he gets in great trouble with his wife because he has left his son-in-law alone with the tree trunks. In his anger, he threw his wife out of the house because of her childlessness and he also gave his father-in-law to understand that he no longer needs him. When Maltschik sees the helplessness of his role model, he runs into the forest and cries himself out. While he was looking around there, he saw a herd of maral deer very close by on the river , which are appearing in the area for the first time in many years and are completely fearless because they don't know any people.

All this excitement makes the boy sick and develop a fever. He goes to the door and sees that his grandfather is helping Uncle Oroskul with the cutting and preparation of a freshly hunted deer and that he gets drunk because of his helplessness. Maltschik connects the death of the animal with the stories of the grandfather and does not want to stay with him anymore. In tears, in a feverish fever, he calls out to his papa across the lake that he is coming to him on the white steamer and goes into the water to swim to him.

production

The film, shot in color, premiered on November 22, 1976 under the title Белый пароход in the Soviet capital Moscow . The first showing in the GDR took place on April 9, 1976 as part of the VIII. Information Show of New Soviet Films in the original version and simultaneously translated in the Berlin International Cinema . The German version was edited by the DEFA studio for dubbing and premiered on April 7, 1977, also at Kino International and Kino Astra in Berlin-Johannisthal . The film was broadcast for the first time on December 28, 1977 in the first program of GDR television.

synchronization

role actor Voice actor
Maltschik Nurgasy Sydygaliev Gregor Seemann
Grandmother Karys Sabira Kumushaliyeva Ruth Kommerell
Uncle Oroskul Orosbek Kutmanaliev Hans-Joachim Hanisch
Grandfather Momun Assankul Kuttubaev Jochen Thomas
Guldschamal Ayturgan Temirova Blanche Kommerell
Bekei Nasira Mambetova Roswitha Hirsch
Kulubek Chorobek Dumanajew Holger Mahlich

criticism

Helmut Ullrich wrote in the Neue Zeit that the translation of the novel into the pictorial was not entirely successful, because the film does not do justice to Aitmatov's precise, self-evident and imaginative narration.

The lexicon of international films described the film as a poetic, sensitive natural fable with high moral standards.

Awards

  • 1976: Grand Prize of the 9th All Union Film Festival of the USSR: Best Soviet Film 1975

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Berliner Zeitung , April 3, 1976, p. 12
  2. Berliner Zeitung , March 31, 1977, p. 10
  3. ^ Neue Zeit , April 14, 1977, p. 4
  4. The white steamer. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed April 12, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. Neues Deutschland , April 27, 1976, p. 4