It's an incredibly cute and straightforward romantic comedy from the country of Azerbaijan.
A very wealthy Merchant wants to find true love but he wants to do it in his own way. That means he wants to see the person before he's married to them the custom that is uncommon in Azerbaijan according to this movie.
So he pretends to be a cloth peddler walking around the streets and singing his love to all the world to hear.
He's hoping to find the girl of his dreams.
Luckily for him there's a girl (of very wealthy status) who is also looking for love outside of the conventional ways.
She's the daughter of a man of high status. A royal of the local Society who is also looking for her own love interest.
From there it's the most basic love story. Two people who fall in love with one another. One not knowing that the other guy is actually rich when he's pretending to be poor. Then being betrothed to the guy later under the pretence that he's a prince, not wanting to marry him because she wanted to marry the poor guy who it turns out was actually the rich guy to begin with.
and the big person standing between their love is her father who wants her to be married to a proper man and not some peasant. Of course he'll find out later on that this guy is Rich and this isn't too bothered about it and becomes all the more happy because he is trying to marry this guy's Aunt. Partly out of loneliness and also to help with his bouts of insomnia.
It's a great starring role for Rashid Behbudov. Who have been a very prominent singer in the Caucasus and throughout Central Asia in his time.
He's the Bing Crosby of Baku.
That's all there is to the story. It's an incredibly simple movie and I appreciate it for that because it doesn't pretend to be anything it's not. It's 1/2 basic story and 1/2 love ballots and singing.
The whole thing is based off of an opera play and had a whole bout of language translations all around the world.
On some Wikipedia pages and other Wiki sites it will state that the film was originally shot with Azerbaijani Turkish.
The version of the film I saw was done mainly if not all in Russian. Rather or not the film was traditionally done in Russian is still unknown to me. It doesn't really matter if there is Dub that was done over it it's well enough that you won't get distracted by it.
The sets for the film are fairly basic. There's only two or three stage props. One of the yard where the daughter lives, another scene of the interior of the prince's houses and one or two marketplaces or Countryside shots. Otherwise the majority of the film is done with large shots shown over very well done matte paintings.
The film has a very Universal feeling to it. You could pluck the story and stick it in rule America or in the back country of France and get a similar response.
Perhaps it illustrates a kind of underlining motif in the most basic of story structures that transcends the borders of even the most closed off of countries.
Or maybe it's just a bunch of gibberish and a simplistic movie is simple to understand even if you're outside of the cultural landscape that is based in.
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