An Analysis of the Kurmanjan Datka Movie in the Context of Historical and Ideological Film Criticism

Abstract

Kurmanjan Datka Queen of the Mountains (2014) is a Kyrgyz historical drama film directed by Sadyk Sher-Niyaz tells the story of Kurmanjan Datka from Kyrgyz history. In this article, how the mentioned motion picture is discussed in Central Asian, Russian, Turkish and Western digital media is analyzed comparatively in the context of historical and ideological film criticism. It is tried to be understood how each country interprets the film in their own media, how they look at the history of Kyrgyzstan and its ideological discourse. In the research, critical discourse analysis method was used and conceptual and thematic classifications were made. At the end of the research, while more history and politics were discussed in the Central Asian media, the Russian and Turkish digital media did not show enough attention to the historical flow, while the Western digital media discussed the film in a multifaceted way in the context of economy-political, identity, gender and aesthetics. Another remarkable difference was that some of the Kyrgyz or Kazakh critics (especially statesmen, historians or artists) criticized the film on the economic-political axis. The in-depth and multidimensional criticisms of the film developed by the eastern critics were found in the Western media or Western journalists gave place to these views in their own digital media.