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TO GET TO HEAVEN
FIRST YOU HAVE TO DIE
A FILM BY DJAMSHED USMONOV
TO GET TO HEAVEN FIRST YOU HAVE TO DIE
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TO GET TO HEAVEN
FIRST YOU HAVE TO DIE
A FILM BY DJAMSHED USMONOV
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Title: To Get to Heaven First You Have to Die
A film by Djamshed Usmonov
Starring Khurched Golibekov, Dinara Droukarova, Maruf Pulodzoda
France / Tajikistan / 2006 / 95 min / Color / Tajik & Russian
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SYNOPSIS
20 year old Kamal has been married for a few months but his wife is
still a virgin.
Learning that there’s nothing physically wrong with him after visiting
a doctor, Kamal sets off to town to search for another woman. The city
is full of them but Kamal is still unable to meet anyone until a chance
encounter on a bus. But it looks as if this accidental meeting will take
Kamal much further than he was counting on...
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TO GET TO HEAVEN FIRST YOU HAVE TO DIE
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INTERVIEW WITH DJAMSHED USMONOV
A young man, Kamal, is shown getting undressed in a tightly framed shot... The opening sequence of To Get
To Heaven First You Have To Die sets the tone of the film from the outset – by focusing primarily on Kamal’s
movements however long they take, we gain knowledge bit by bit, of his development.
I’d like the audience to approach the film by this particular scene and to wonder about this boy. Angel on the Right took place in
a more exotic, traditional realm of sorts where you got to understand how people in this country ate and spoke... This time I’ve
given up the folk aspect. In this film I think that my characters are more universal. Kamal lives in a village but he’s obviously not
your typical villager. He could be a city person ... and the film might have been made anywhere in the world. But it also makes me
more vulnerable in the process – I can’t use folklore to hide or distinguish myself.
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How did you go about the writing of the script?
I love to write my scripts myself – I tend to write them as poetry, with specific words. But for me scripts are meaningless, they
have nothing to do with the film. You can’t put films into words. My script is a list that I keep changing everyday. It’s a list of
the scenes to be shot – described briefly – which I give to my first assistant. The first scene, say, goes something like ‘‘Naked
man’’. The crew don’t need anything more because they know what I need – in terms of sets and props. We deal with highly
practical stuff. The script is only intended as a guideline for the crew.
Do you also use the script as a guideline?
Not really, I’ve used more dialogue in this film, but I still change the lines as well and give them to the actors on a day-to-day
basis. I like to work in Tajikistan tremendously because I feel that it is the only place where I can make films as I see fit – that is
to say, as total art. During the making of a film, it is all around me – my crew, my life, whenever I eat or talk to people... We’re all
immersed in the making of the film, that’s all we ever think about, and I’m allowed to reshuffle the schedule. If I happen to be
shooting in the street, I may replace an actor by some passer-by who’s drawn my attention. I give no explanation – nothing.
When my French producers asked me what I intended to do exactly, and how much of the original script I meant to change, I
just told them, ‘‘I want to make a surprise-film for you!’’ This had the producers worried sick... but they eventually understood
I was right when they saw the dailies.
Kamal is actively passive – he’s put himself in a position to receive what he’s been expecting...
He’s been expecting something that he’s now ready to receive. It all happened to him accidentally. Some great artist whose
name I can’t remember once said that the people of the Court must play around the King and perform the right gestures
simply to show that he’s the King and to legitimise his rank. Kamal is like the King – he doesn’t need to be active. He exists
only in as much as he’s allowed to exist in other people’s minds.
During the first half of the film, ‘‘other people’’ mostly refer to women...
I’d never shot a film with women before. I enjoyed working with Dinara Droukarova very much. She’s a truly smart, sensitive
yet, has a kind of naivety. These are great qualities in an actor. Femininity is more directly involved in the story than Angel on
the Right. It’s been a really interesting experience for me and I’m interested in developing this direction further. The female
realm is more interesting than the male realm. Women are more subtle, more sensitive morally speaking. We men may steal,
kill or do something foolish without even thinking. Women think things through. They’re responsible. The male realm is more
rigid, more symmetrical. The female realm is more flexible. It was very important to tell a story from the woman’s viewpoint.
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For me Madame Bovary is one of the most beautiful characters ever and Bergman has always told women’s stories. If you find the
key to the female realm, you can get very rich. That’s what Kamal is looking for.
Woman as an ‘‘obscure object of desire’’... The first scene on the train brings to mind Buñuel’s opening
sequence...
During the shoot I rather had Darezhan Omirbayev’s films in mind – I even appeared in his film The Road. I thought about him
and his world sometimes. But I had no time to think about other filmmakers! Darezhan’s filmmaking is about purity. Whenever I
see his films, I get the impression that the time of the film is new, tangible as it were. His relationship with time is very forceful...
The same can be said about your film...
In any case I really asked myself how I could achieve this. For me the answer is truth – truth to the situation in the storyline, truth
of the acting and truth of my presence as director, behind which lies my own believing this truth or not. I believe that’s what the
film is all about – truth, over and over again. But I don’t work like Omirabyev at all. He’s very calm, very well-organized. I draw
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beauty and harmony out of chaos. It was a huge chaos where every crew member had their own views, where time was against
you... It started raining, one of the actors got sick... I made this film rushing all the time. We began pre-production in December
and on January 9 we were shooting already. We only had 2 months of shooting time and we had to face 2 major challenges – the
snow which held us up for 5 days and film damage. It affected 4 scenes and I had to shoot them all over again. On this shoot time
was my greatest enemy.
How did you find Kurched Golibekov who plays Kamal?
He’s my nephew. And my brother plays the crook. I love working with my relatives – they have faith in me and I in them. I had
initially written Kamal’s part for another actor. But he was about to get married and he didn’t feel like playing that type of a role
before the wedding... I then thought of my nephew immediately. We worked together and shared the same room during the onemonth pre-production stage. But I didn’t tell him anything specific about the film. I’d just talk a lot to him. This was my way of
getting him ready for the shoot – without his realizing it. We’d talk about life, I’d help him become aware of specific gestures,
idiosyncrasies or expressions of his which I found unbecoming. I’d say to him – ‘‘this is unbecoming, you’re a grown man now’’.
One day I told him – ‘‘Now I think you’re ready to do the film. Will you?’’ He said yes.
How did you go about the editing?
I wanted to make the film very vivid. I remembered Hemingway’s particular writing method – he would ‘‘behead his writings’’,
cut the first paragraphs. I did the same thing, more or less. When I shoot, I already have a specific notion of the storyline. But it’s
only a notion, it hasn’t materialized yet. You need to be in the editing room for the film to become tangible, for you to be able to
touch it, see it, cut it. You need to write or shoot certain things before you can cut them. The main difference between the original
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script and the completed film is that in the former the story began earlier and Kamal’s wife had a greater part. But I thought it’d be
much more interesting to leave her out. It gave her another force, a symbolic, more universal dimension. She then became THE
ultimate woman and kept the film from getting sentimental. I’ve also cut down on the scene with the doctor, at the beginning,
because I felt it was overly explanatory.
There’s almost a new development halfway through the film. Kamal has just met Vera, he’s supposedly about to
become an accomplished man and yet he doesn’t – he has to once again experience the men’s realm epitomized by
the crook... To Get To Heaven First You Have To Die could be described as a double coming-of-age tale...
There’s the first storyline developing until Kamal meets Vera’s husband. After this there comes a turning point which alters the
tone of the film. Kamal will have to kill someone in order to become a man. Love and sex are very close to death. When you’re in
love with someone, you’re always close to death. Paradoxically enough that’s also why we fall in love. Kamal’s in love with his wife
but when the film begins, he’s at heaven’s gate. He’s not in heaven yet. To experience true love – love which binds love and sex
together, he has to experience something, like a journey. That’s what he does throughout the film, which somehow kills him.
This accounts for two noticeable ellipses in the film – the first night Kamal spends with Vera and the scene where
the crook holds a red dress out to him... Two ellipses which leave out what happens sexually – or not – between
the characters...
It’s up to the audience to figure things out. When people ask me why any of the characters acts in such and such a way, I say ‘‘I
witnessed the scene for as long as it went on. But beforehand and afterwards, I’m just like you all – I wasn’t there, I haven’t seen
anything! I can’t explain it any further. That’s the way it is. It’s up to you to do the thinking now’’. My purpose is to touch the
viewers’ imagination, to stir it.
As the director, how do you touch the audience’s imagination and coax the viewers into relating to Kamal?
Buddha said that if you tell the truth directly, it will be hard to hear, it will be unpleasant, and that’s why he’d rather make up
stories. A story is like a sweetened pill – the truth is in it but the sweetness makes it less bitter. Why do we relate to Kamal?
Because we used to be like him when we were 20. We used to be pure and naive, and we felt like experiencing things and being
adventurous. That’s probably why we feel for him – he represents our past. When I was 20, I felt better than I do today. In every
respect. Physically I used to feel stronger, I had a great memory, I was naive, I loved books and poetry. I believed in the future
which was very promising. But today I’ve lost all this. Life hasn’t broken me but it’s hardened my heart. Kamal had to suffer over
a 90-minute film whatever life made me go through over 20 years!
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For me, Kamal doesn’t become hardened. Quite on the contrary he opens up to the world... Whereas at the
beginning of the film he’s torn – he’s in love with a woman but cannot perform the gestures of love...
If you have a symbolic approach to the film, Kamal is driven by a dark force which he has to fight. The crook embodies the dark
force. For me, Kamal has lost his kindness. He goes back to his wife at the end. But what does he bring with him? That’s the whole
point for me. Try to imagine the scene – they make love, everything’s going just fine. But his killing someone will stay with him
forever and will resurface one day. Kamal lost his innocence. I don’t know how he’ll be able to live with his wife after this. I really
wonder about it. Kamal has entered heaven but he’s dead somehow because he’s seen too much, because he’s killed someone and
made a girl unhappy. You must bear in mind that Vera is left alone at the end of the film. What will she be doing now?
And yet you don’t go for psychological explanations – there’s no moral judgement of the character on your part,
we don’t see Kamal as a bad man. His path crossed with Vera’s, that’s all.
But Vera is miserable all the same. She’s left alone, Kamal killed her husband... It’s true that husband did some terrible things, but
when I was young I liked people a lot. All kinds of people. I only began to be choosy and to make a difference between people later
on. When you begin to make such a difference, I guess you begin to die...
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... Or you begin to perceive things differently...
I’m not sure... Everyone’s lonely in the film. Kamal finds himself in different stories – the story of the woman on the train, the story of
his cousin, that of Vera. Each time he bears witness to destinies without love. Life is hard, dramatically hard... All the same Kamal has
kept his love intact for his wife. That’s very important for me. Despite the hardships he’s been through, he retains this force.
Which proves that his heart hasn’t become that hardened after all!
True, there’s still purity left in him. Just a little bit, really... But this tiny bit is the reason why I wanted to make this film.
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FILMOGRAPHY
As a director
2002
2000
1998
1989
Angel on the Right
The Well
Flight of the Bee
The Man
As an actor
2001
The Road - Darejan Omirbaev
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CAST
CREW
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Kamal Khurched Golibekov Vera Dinara Droukarova Mari de Vera Maruf Pulodzoda.
Director Djamshed Usmonov Script Djamshed Usmonov Photography Pascal Lagriffoul Editing Jacques Comets Sound Patrick
Becker Art direction Mavlodod Farosatshoev Costumes Aksinia Pastukh Sound Editing Jean Gargone Mixer Stéphane Thiébaut
Stills photographer Dan Glasser Assistant Director Nosir Rahmonov Make-up Lilia Sorokopud Executive Producer Mariya Usmanova
Production directors Maruf Pulodzoda, Marie Laure Wicker Produced by Elzévir Films et Ciné Manufacture In co-productoin with
Pandora Filmproduktion, South Bridge, Saga Production, Arte France Cinema, TSR With the participation of CNC, Filmstiftung
NRW, Filmförderungsanstalt, L’Office Fédéral de la Culture With the support of Global Film Initiative, Programme MEDIA de la
Communauté Européenne, Pusan Promotion Plan, Göteborg Film Festival, La Procirep.
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