Official Selection - Competition 2002 / Gwenchana uljima / South Korea 2001
Muhamed returns to his native village since he’s unable to pay off his gambling debts. He even had to part with his violin and pretends at home that he’s made a great career for himself as a virtuoso performer. A conflict of generations, the differences between town and country life, fundamental values and emotions are the main themes of this exceptional film set in Central Asia.
Muhamed frequents a Moscow casino and, by the way he self-confidently boasts to the waitress, it seems as if luck is on his side. But the opposite is true, however, and soon he has to face the fact that he has lost a lot of money. His unfortunate financial situation forces him to return home to a village in Central Asia where his neighbours think he’s made a great career for himself as a virtuoso violinist. The truth soon comes out and his mother bursts into tears when she realises that even his violin case is empty – he’d gambled away its contents. Muhamed tries to find money to pay back his debts, and the mafia are always on his heels. He feels all alone, tangled up in a web of his own lies; he’s at the end of the world and the end of his strength. One morning, however, someone leaves an egg on his window ledge. Is this an expression of sympathy or compassion? Muhamed looks sadly back at his village, he has to leave because now the police are also looking for him and lies can’t help him. His heart is empty and he needs someone to tap on his shoulder and say: “Life goes on. Let’s not cry!”…
108 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Min Boung-hun
/ Screenplay Min Boung-hun
/ Dir. of Photography Min Boung-hun
/ Music Woo Jong-min
/ Editor Park Gok-ji
/ Producer Jeong Nam-hun
/ Production Seoul Entertainment Inc., Media Mix Entertainment Inc.
/ Cast Muhammad Rahimo
Min Boung-hun (1969, Korea) acquired his film education at the VGIK in Moscow. He has directed several shorts, including the film A Person (1995) and A Portrait (1996). In 1998, together with Tajik director Jamshed Usmonov, he made his feature debut The Flight of the Bee (Parvozi zanbur) which was awarded at a number of festivals and also screened at the Karlovy Vary IFF. The director returns to the poetic ambience of this film and to the Central Asian environment where The Flight of the Bee was set, for his second film, Let´s Not Cry. Min Boung-hun says of his film story: “On my travels I stopped in a coal-mining region. I lodged at a private house, and their son kept saying that he would never work in a coal mine. Instead he insisted that he would succeed as a guitarist in Moscow. But all he did was get drunk with his friends. This highly non-Asian approach to life is becoming increasingly more apparent even in Korea" says Min Boung-hun.
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