If Not This, Then That

The film rests on a musical comedy. Uzeyir Hajibeyov wrote the piece. The text was written at the start of the twentieth century. At the centre of the account is a young woman called Gulnaz. Gulnaz and a young man called Sarvar love each other. But her father Rustam bey has gone bankrupt. He sees a marriage as the way to clear his debts. He will give his daughter to a rich old merchant. The merchant is called Mashadi Ibad. Sarvar looks for a way out of it. At the wedding he goes under the veil himself. When the veil is lifted the groom finds him instead of the bride. Things come apart from there. The film is popularly known by the name of its main character. Äliagha Aghayev and Tamara Gozalova take the leads in Huseyn Seyidzadeh’s Soviet production, shot in Azerbaijan.