CINEMA AS BRANDING - Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges - page 188

streamlined cinematic narrative drained of morally ambiguous characters.
The film ends with Ablai's voiceover comment, addressing to his people
and in a version distributed in Kazakhstan is followed by a written post-
script from President Nazarbaev, urging the nation to cherish the past and
“stay united.” Oral tradition, however, has always drawn a line between a
will to power and public commitment. In a message that Ablai is believed
to have passed on his sons he advises them never to “solve intertribal
problems because it is the squabbles and enmities that are the most reliable
sources of khan's power” (Valikhanov, 1985).
The filmmakers thus reworked the story, creating a narrative serving
the purpose of the newly created personality - Ablai the hero. But as Da-
vid Edwards has summarized the insights from the study of Greek my-
thology, “a praiseworthy as heroes might be, they are also dangerous.”
“Noble and memorable indeed,” he continues, “they also stand outside
the normal orbit of human interaction and are never entirely fit for the
ordinary society” (1996). Kazakh storytellers and writers understood this
well. The original story of Ablai shows that it is precisely this ambivalence
that makes characters noble and their stories memorable . After watching
Nomad , on the other hand, one may wonder what this unsophisticated col-
orful video drama featuring the exotic hero and his enemy who look just
the same was all about.
The filmmakers faced tough choices: on the one hand, the film they
were commissioned to make was to project a positive and coherent image
of the country. On the other, they were supposed to have Ablai as a protago-
nist. But, as told by the Kazakh authors, his story, which revolved around
ruthless and fraudulent actions of local lords, was deemed to be unsuitable
for such purpose unless they altered it. The Kazakh historical society had a
strong appreciation of oral literature of which they had, as Winner said, an
“almost inexhaustible reservoir” (1958). This is how the idea of synchro-
nization of the story of Ablai and the Kazakh heroic epos came into being.
In some instances, Ablai was indeed attributed the prescribed qualities
of a legendary hero in oral tradition. One example is his victory in the duel
with Sharish, a powerful opponent who had never been defeated before.
This is a common strategy in Turkic oral tradition to articulate the hero's
“unusual strength” (ibid: 73). 22 In fact, Galdan Ceren did not have a son
22 The episode, which has not been discussed in this study, when Ablai, already a mature man, is res-
cued from being assassinated by a camel is also usual for the epos where the unexpected interference
of an animal, a woman, or some supernatural creature is a sign of a special status of the warrior (ibid;
Yessenberlin [1973] 1989: 407-408).