All That Glitters
Director: Tomas Kudrna
All That Glitters is about how strange capitalism and democracy can be if it is introduced into a country with a soviet tradition i.e. in a country in which people have never had to make their own decisions. This film gives an opportunity to think outside our civilization and the export of democracy to the rest of the world. Kyrgyzstan and the small village of Barskon provide a picture of the whole world and its fundamental powers. Kyrgyzstan is a crossroads of interests. On a political level it is the rivalry between Russian and America influence, on a religious level it is the rivalry between Christianity and Islam and on an economic level it is the predominance of China and Russia.
Filmed in the settlement of Barskon, Kyrgyzstan, one of the former states of the Soviet Union. During the time of the Soviet Empire, the people of Barskon did not fare very well. They lived under a totalitarian regime in which the value of a human life seemed negligible. Despite the oppression of Soviet rule they had at least everything they needed. The socialist system provided each and every inhabitant with work, a wage, free education and good health care. Regardless of whether a person worked or idled away their time, the conquests of socialism were always at hand.
The Soviet system introduced people to collective farming, provided tractors and harvesting machinery, built fences in front of people’s houses, repaired roads, and built schools. Then everything changed. The USSR broke up and democracy and capitalism came in. In Barskon no one really knew what to do and how to conduct themselves in a capitalist, democratic system. Habits remained the same and people waited to receive and take orders from above. Is it possible to establish democracy in a country that has lived under Soviet rule for so long?
After a period of chaos the situation began to improve. Even the inhabitants of Barskon began to feel it, especially when a large investor from Canada began to mine for gold in the mountains above Barskon. People from Barskon saw a powerful neighbor in Kumtor and began to expect it to provide everything which the USSR used to provide. In order to avoid protests from the inhabitants of Barskon, Kumtor begin to support the villagers and thus drew nearer to the role of the USSR. They became big brother.