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We are glad to greet you.
Today we want to talk about such a significant person for Azerbaijani cinema and music Polad Bulbuloglu.
He got his name from his father, it means son of a nightingale.
He got the nickname son of a nightingale (Bulbuloglu) for his vocal skills and the son, who showed early musical skills, got the nickname as well.
Polad Bulbuloglu began as an accompanist. He studied piano in a music school. His first appearance on a stage was as his father's accompanist.
He entered a conservatory, in the composer department. When he was 17 years old, he wrote several songs (one of them was about Moscow and went to Moscow to record them on the radio.
Polad Bulbuloglu is famous not only among musicians, but also among moviemakers. He has written several songs for soundtracks and acted in some films.
He has composed music for about twenty movies, in some of them he acted as an actor and performer. His most well known movie is Don't be afraid, I'm with you.
This movie was made by Yuliy Gusman in 1981. There were two parts and it is about Azerbaijan at the beginning of the 20th century.
It is a very interesting film that shows life in that period in Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan has never been an Islamic state, it was always a secular state.
Indeed we can say, that it was a softer Islam. In Islam it is forbidden to play in a theatre and create art, man has to devote himself to God only.
In this case only women were forbidden to act, men had a cultural way of life.
In that period Azerbaijan was a melting pot of many nations traditions, including that of its neighbours.
For example, the blood feud shown in the film. In several of our programmes we've told you about a blood feud.
It is shown in the movie Caucasian captive and partly in Don't grieve.
Bulbuloglu, despite his ethnic way of singing popularized native songs and folklore melodies.
Let's return to the movie. They often say there, that the blood feud hangs over from the old days, that we still live in the 20th century.
Many of them say that it is not an Azerbaijani custom at all, it was adopted. For example, the bride kidnapping is also an adopted custom.
They sing a lot in the movie, it is in some kind a musical action movie. It is a mix of different genres. It is a mix of old and new customs.
And in historical movies we've observed eclectic genres and styles. The same is in the movie Don't be afraid, I'm with you.
Even the character played by Lev Durov, who tries to use elements of martial arts, i.e. it's not only an eclectic movie, but a rather funny one, showing the state of society for the moment,
it enriches the language of cinema and the culture of cinema, and for today this film is rather prankish, fresh, it doesn't become stale.
In 1980 1990s movies with martial arts were popular.
We enjoyed watching western films and possibly adopted from western and eastern colleagues movies about Kung fu, Karate, American and Hong Kong films with Bruce Lee.
As far as I remember, Durov's character said that he took the technique from some traditional martial arts. He's not saying that it is from the East.
There was a cautious attitude towards martial arts then. There were films, where characters collected elements of all martial arts and created their own style.
It is worth noticing (let's return to traditions), that Bulbuloglu plays a young actor Teymur, who plays women roles.
It was forbidden in Azerbaijani theatre for women to act, all women roles were played by men.
The same as in Japan (there it had nothing to do with Islam), where in the Kabuki theatre all roles were played by men.
In an Azerbaijani movie they couldn't pass over the oil issue.
One of the town elders tries to find oil, because some of his friends already possess it.
And even when a young geologist tries to prove him that the elder lives in mountains and there is no oil there, the elder man says: No. It must be.
Aside from other activities, Polad Bulbuloglu composes music for ballet.
In 2009 a ballet Love and Death based on Azerbaijani epic tales was staged.
It is back to basics. The last film with his cameo appearance is Soviet Park.
This is everything we wanted to tell you about Polad Bulbuloglu. Thank you and see you later.