Paper short abstract:

In this paper, the author focuses on the analysis of Uzbek films with vivid ornamentalistic stylistics ("Man Follows Birds" (1995) by A. Khamraev and "The Road Under the Skies" (2006) by K. Kamalova) and proposes the specific features that distinguish external ethnography from ornamentalism. 

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the analysis of ornamental films in Uzbekistan, where the author proposes the specific features that distinguish external ethnography from ornamentalism.

Although there is a common stereotype that Soviet cinema can be explained within a realistic paradigm, this thesis can be accepted with reservations because of the works of Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Paradjanov, Yuri Ilyenko, etc. Most people identify Uzbek cinema as realistic, frequently interpreted as creativity built on external ethnic principles. However, there are a few examples that pull back from pure ethnographic narration and are not based on the empirical level of visualization.

Along with realistic tradition, Uzbek cinema makes the first non-realistic attempts at ornamentalistic stylistics during and after the collapse of the USSR. Ornamental movies, as a product of emerging post-modernism, are balancing on the fine line between folkloric and ethnographic films. However, ornamental movies bring with them non-structural, chaotic narratives where the linear storytelling is overlapped by unnatural-looking visual compositions that construct their own highly symbolic narratives, while objects gain social meanings regarding their placement in the context and talk by themselves. "Man Follows Birds" (1995) by Ali Khamraev and "The Road Under the Skies" (2006) by Kamara Kamalova can also be attributed to the "ornamental style," in which the cinematic language differs from traditional forms of Uzbek filmmaking. 

This paper is based on a comparative analysis of Western and Uzbek ornamental films. Academic works related to the analysis of modernist cinema (N. Karimova, A. Kovács, K. Oeler, etc.) are also used.