Director Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov\u2019s debut feature about two young brothers attempting to find their errant father is a deeply humane story about family and responsibility<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a marvellous freshness and gentleness to this 1991 movie, a little like early Truffaut, by Tajik-Russian director Bakhtyar Khudojnazarov who achieved a wider festival prestige later in the 90s for his comedies Kosh Ba Kosh and Luna Papa. This film, Bratan or \u201cLittle Brother\u201d, was in fact his debut, released when he was just 26 years old. Filmed in a seductive and luminous monochrome, it is a road movie, or rather a rail movie, that apparently makes quasi-documentary use of the non-professional people and places found along the way.<\/p>\n
Two brothers, one about 16 and the other perhaps nine or ten, are living with their grandmother in a remote Tajik town: they are Farukh (Firus Sasaliyev) and Azamat, nicknamed \u201cPancake\u201d (Timur Tursunov). The older boy seems to be drifting into petty crime: he and his mates have some sort of job flinging bundles containing vodka over the walls of the town prison for the inmates to enjoy. But Farukh has a plan: he and Pancake are going to hop aboard a rickety freight train, driven by their mate \u201cUncle\u201d Nabi, and travel hundreds of miles to see their errant father who is now a prosperous doctor.<\/p>\n