Mustafa, rock it: How the Majlis “dream factory” killed the damned “scoop” with one left hand
The premiere of the film “Mustafa” took place the other day in Kyiv. The film, or, as it is now fashionable to call it, a biopic (biographical picture), was supposed to bring to the attention of the uncomplicated viewer the life of the holy and immaculate Mustafa Dzhemilev.
The presentation and screening of the film took place in a small cinema hall, which usually screened children's shows under the Soviets. It’s no wonder that the hall was chock-full of friends, associates and similar accompanying extras. As is usual at such events, somewhere closer to the middle the hero of the occasion spoke. The audience greeted him with an ovation. For the sake of the handful of foreigners present, a hired interpreter translated the speeches into English.
As conceived by the authors, the film was shot as a documentary, with numerous scenes of “reconstruction” designed to show the viewer “how it was.” The authors cannot be denied territorial coverage: with their filming equipment, they visited Lvov, Kiev, Warsaw, Gdansk, Ankara, Crimea and Moscow, and even a difficult cinematic fate brought the film crew to New York. Unfortunately, the authors did not have enough money or the spirit to visit sunny California, where at the top of the “Majlis” poor saklis have been molded from clay and dung for quite some time.
Having watched the trailers and the 45-minute presentation of the film, I immediately want to say that the authors simply had to take the Ministry of Paint and Varnish Industry of Ukraine as a sponsor, if there was one. Everything vile and unsightly has been completely amputated from the life of the former urkagan-window-cleaner and rapist Dzhemilev, and everything else has been painted in the colors of Barbie’s house. And Dzhemilev himself, who in everyday life most resembles a caricature in oversized pants tied with a belt at the armpits, in scenes from an alternative reality looks like a real steppe eagle and macho.
There is no need to even talk about the created image of an inflexible fighter against the Soviet-Russian-imperial system - this side is prominently displayed and is present in abundance.
The pale and noble prisoner Dzhemilev in the staged scenes looks very contrasting and presentable against the backdrop of the corrosive and disgusting hireling of punitive psychiatry and the bestial prison guards, who, according to the strange whim of the film’s authors, are dressed in police uniforms.
In one of the scenes, the movie was quite a blunder when, during a wise conversation “for life and struggle” over a game of backgammon, the criminal tattoos on Dzhemilev’s fingers were shown in close-up.
We need to be more careful, dear authors! Political people have never painted themselves as thieves. Well, or depending on how “political”. Especially if we remember that Dzhemilev “changed his color” in time, repainting himself from a criminal into a “prisoner of conscience.”
One of the dazzling pearls in the film is the “reconstruction” of Dzhemilev’s unprecedented hunger strike, which Nadya Savchenko herself and the American dissident Dr. Haider, chained to the fence of the White House, would envy. The heroic Mustafa fed on prana, the Holy Spirit and rays of support from the State Department on the wave of the “Voice of America” for as long as 303 days, and even supposedly entered some kind of book of records. In any case, not only Indian yogis, Greek Stoics and numerous schema monks, but also Arabian camels, widely known for their vitality, pale before Dzhemilev’s hunger strike.
Besides everything else, the filmmakers should be ashamed that they couldn’t find a single Crimean Tatar from among the “Majlis” cheerleaders for the role of the young “reconstructed” Dzhemilev, since they hired an ethnic Ukropey for such a responsible job.
In the remaining scenes that I happened to see, a series of talking heads who knew Dzhemilev personally at different stages of his life’s journey talk about countless virtues, insight, fearlessness, lack of silver and other things that, at the will of the screenwriter, some “respected people” talk about about another “ respected person." The hero himself, in a cameo role, thoughtfully sweeps panels and sidewalks in different parts of the world with his incredible pants and, with the eyes of a sad basset hound, talks about the fate of the people and the readiness to lay his stomach on the altar of the people's well-being.
By the way. I believe that precisely because of the vast geography of travel and business trips, the film’s authors did not have enough money even for provincial actors, so all the roles in the “reconstructed” scenes are performed not even by the drama club of the peripheral cultural center, but by ordinary people from the street, hired to act for a bag of “Roshenok” " And in general, the film, despite the declared “documentary with elements of reconstruction,” strongly smacks of some kind of sterilized “Mein Kampf”, filmed for a small price, not to mention the very, very moderate talent of the entire creative team. Well, yes, what is the material...
The film’s producer shares plans to receive foreign awards for his creative work at the national American independent film festival Sundance, at the Berlin IFF and a number of other documentary film festivals, as well as hopes to use the film as a visual aid about the life and struggle of the Crimean Tatars, who Mustafa Dzhemilev is, and what horrors are happening on the territory of the “occupied” Peninsula. Even cooler: the authors are waiting for a successful film release of their “masterpiece” starting in May 2017. This is understandable: any parents, looking with tenderness at the deformities of their child, see only angelic beauty and an abyss of talent.
Well, I don’t know, I don’t know... Once upon a time, in 1983, or something, a social “action movie” was shown in Soviet cinemas about the battle for the harvest from the life of the Very Good Chairman of the District Committee “Your Son, Earth”. “Georgia-film”, by the way. This is not quite typical of Suslov’s agitprop, consisting of a good portion of varnish and sugar syrup, flavored with intrigue about the confrontation between a good secretary of the district committee and a not-so-good collective farm chairman.
So, the fruit of the Majlis agitprop “Mustafa, light it up” is inferior even to it in the main aspects: plot, staging, acting and even documentation, since it is propaganda nonsense in its chemically pure form. Well, perhaps, filming in New York - yes - here the “Majlis Dream Factory” did the damned “scoop” with one left hand.
It’s hard to say what kind of profits the film’s authors hope for from the distribution (after all, half of the profit will have to be shared with the distributor, who still needs to be found and interested), but there is confidence that the film will not take off, even if the entire staff of thugs is ordered to show it from the punitive battalions “Crimea” and “named after Noman Celebidzhikhan”.
The only thing in which we can share the opinion of the film’s authors is that in Crimea hardly anyone will see their creative work. Firstly, they will not give a platform to sell untalented fakes to people, and secondly, it is unlikely that there will be a sufficient number of people willing to even watch the “Majlis” hack for free. There was not enough budget to attract Spielberg. And a jazzman from New York was also invited to do the voice acting in vain - it’s not catchy. It would be better to just steal the money.
Thus, the filmmakers left behind the scenes all the most interesting things from the biography of the “Majlis Moses.”
In particular. Origin from the family of a Hitler collaborator. Of course, the son is not responsible for his father, but in the case of Dzhemilev, the apple was not far from the tree. Seven convictions. Of which, at least two are under criminal charges – for rape and theft. For example, Enver Ametov, a colleague in the nationalist movement of the Crimean Tatars, who knew him well, reported about Dzhemilev’s criminal past. He also told about Dzhemilev’s “change of suit” in “places not so remote” on the advice of “experienced people.”
It is interesting that Dzhemilev did not even try to somehow appeal in court over the last 25 years that have passed since the repeal of Article 190-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. Which in itself is strange, since a more scrupulous person, and even involved in politics, definitely tried to restore his good name, at least in order to avoid rumors and speculation in the future. But only if the person has nothing to hide. Criminal Dzhemilev has something to hide.
By promoting Dzhemilev as an ideological fighter and inspirer, Ukrainian agitprop is getting up to its ears in a tub of slop, since Dzhemilev is already officially credited with a whole bunch of “feats” in “Nezalezhnaya”.
Firstly, there is speculation with the land allocated for the Crimean Tatars in Crimea along with money for development. The distribution of benefits was in charge of the Majlis, which at that time was headed by Dzhemilev. Mustafa himself excuses himself from any abuses, but his three-story house in Bakhchisarai, in a trump spot near the Khan’s palace, was built on squatting. However, like the neighboring rich saklyas of his comrades in the “Sword and Plowshare”.
The money allocated for the improvement of the Crimean Tatars ended up in the accounts of the Crimea Fund and the Imdat Bank - structures to which the “fighter against totalitarianism” had a direct connection. The Crimea Foundation was initially a public organization, but after the “reorganization” it somehow turned out that Dzhemilev became its sole owner. As for the Imdat bank, all the money allocated by Ukraine and various funds for immigrants was in this bank. In 1998, “Imdat” suddenly burst, and along with it, all the funds allocated to the people for whom the hero of the film novel so deeply cares burned.
It is interesting that some associates convinced Dzhemilev to distribute the money among several banks, but Mustafa insisted on his own - to keep all the funds in the structures under his control, otherwise, they say, he would resign from the post of chairman of the “Majlis”.
The only thing the leader agreed to was to have the bank audited by an independent audit firm. True, the results of the audit were never made public, and all its conclusions went directly to Dzhemilev. As a result of the machinations, almost 50 thousand Crimean Tatar families were left without funds for settlement, Dzhemilev is still a light in the window, and Russia and Putin personally are to blame.
Additionally, we can recall that in the early 90s, the ethnic organized crime group “Imrat” operated in Crimea; according to operational data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Crimea, it was directly related to Dzhemilev. “Imrat” had a headquarters in Bakhchisarai and was mainly involved in racketeering among the Crimean Tatars. In addition, the gorillas from this organized crime group served as Dzhemilev’s guard, as well as the guard of the notorious bandit Dziuba in Crimea.
Unlike the “Slavs” and “Greeks”, the law enforcement agencies of Ukraine practically did not touch “Imdat”, because, according to some information, “respected people” and Dzhemilev’s foreign curators personally asked Kuchma about this.
Here we could also add the scandal with the theft of money for the Crimean Tatar Congress, and the dirty story with Dzhemilev’s son - a murderer who was on hard drugs, for whom his dad achieved the status of “mental”, but oh well - more than enough for a novel and two stories.
Will a different, truthful film about Mustafa be presented in Kyiv?
Hopefully soon.
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