Alias ​​Kurban Said (2004)

Directed by: Jos de Putter | 80 minutes | documentary | Starring: Bruno Ganzo

Who was the author of the novel Ali and Nino? Was it the Jew Lev Nissenbaum? The Muslim Essad Bey? Was Essad Bey perhaps Lev Nissenbaum at the same time? And what does Aunt Elfriede have to do with all this? Questions, questions and more questions that documentary maker Jos de Putter tries to answer in the documentary ‘Alias ​​Kurban Saïd’. He does this in an amusing way, albeit without much result.

De Putter traveled half the world to answer these questions. Many people involved have their say, and it soon becomes clear that everyone has their own truth about Kurban Said. It quickly becomes clear that we will never know for sure who Kurban Said really was; too many interpretations and too many uncertainties.

It could make for a frustrating documentary, but ‘Alias ​​Kurban Said’ has by no means become that. Its greatest charm lies in the colorful sets and striking characters. The picturesque streets of Baku and the equally picturesque village of Positano where Essad Bey spent his last days. We witness a heated quarrel between highly learned Azeris and we hear the touching statements of two noble Austrian ladies, who are still convinced that Kurban Said was none other than their aunt Elfriede. And then there’s that Italian fellow villager who still has to shed a tear at the memory of ‘family friend’ Essad Bey, alias Lev Nissenbaum, alias Kurban Said.

In terms of design, Jos de Putter has opted for an artistic style. Parts of the novel Ali and Nino are recited (by the German actor Bruno Ganz), the images between the interviews are often old-fashioned coarse-grained or sepia-tinted and are accompanied by a plaintive string instrument. In an ego documentary or a factual account, such a thing can be quite disturbing. In this story about mystifications, however, it works fine, also because De Putter has chosen to show the locations as they must have looked in Kurban Saïd’s time. In this way, this documentary becomes a wonderful journey through space and time, in which the stated goal soon becomes irrelevant.

It is often difficult to categorize contemporary documentaries. The boundary between fact and fiction is becoming increasingly blurred and the artistic quality sometimes plays a (too) large role. Where to place the documentary ‘Alias ​​Kurban Saïd’ is as impossible a task as answering the question who that writer was ultimately. That’s not bad. More important is what remains: the two novels that Kurban Saïd has written and that one entertaining, curious, but also somewhat noncommittal documentary for which he was indirectly responsible.