Tulpan

Sergei Dvortsevoy's Tulpan is a really mature and really quite fascinating mediation on a young man's angst, as well as his apparent unrequited love; life as a Kazakh farmer living in rural nowhere; contemporary culture clashing with more classical stances and the telling of a great friendship between two young men. The film at once recalls the work of Iranian directors Abbas Kiarostami and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, specifically, both the sorts of material combining with the very specific aesthetics applied to two of their films in 1998's Taste of Cherry and 1996's Gabbeh, respectively. Similalrly, it owes a great deal of debt to some of the Italian neo-realist works of the 1940s and 50s; the film coming to resemble as much an articulate tale about characters going through transitions and suffering hardships as it is a raw and uncompromising depiction of life in the barren locale in which it's set. Where something like De Sica's The Bicycle Thieves may have used causality, plot mechanisms and catalysts to drive its lead through a story set in a world which would eerily double up as echoing its own frightening reality; Dvortsevoy, here, draws on similar approaches and depicts life set amidst a Kazakh locale known as 'Hunger Steppe', as those whom inhabit it just seem to fall in to proceedings.

The lead is a certain Asa (Kuchencherekov), a young man in his twenties recently discharged from the Russian Navy, returning to what we presume to be a locale similar to his own roots so as to rendez-vous with his sister Samal (Esljamova); a woman living with her husband Ondas (Besikbasov) and three children in a small tent-like structure on their farm. Dvortsevoy's film is a bare-all look at life upon this locale, when particular characters are rounding up cattle and a large whirlwind of sand and dust kicks up nearing itself to the livestock, that's a true-to-life event captured in its rawest form on film and incorporated into the text going on to not only affect the characters we're identifying with, but doubling up to outline life as it is in this exact zone. Tulpan unfolds in a locale in which the sands and outback of the place surrounds the farm in all directions, while expansive hills and mountains spreading all the way out to the horizon provide the place with an intimidating and surreal edge, as if there is nothing in any direction for several hundred miles and you're cut off in precisely where you're based. That sense of being trapped feels prominent, so much so that when one character expresses his wishes to expand one's position in life to broaden out elsewhere, that agonising and desperate sense of it having little chance comes about.

Asa and his tractor-driving; all singing, all smiling Boney-M loving friend Boni (Baisakalov) look to elevate their positions in life, the film beginning in the small tent of a neighbouring family as Asa pines for the titular Tulpan's hand in marriage, she being the daughter of a wealthy, land-owning unit. The pair of them linger on magazines detailing certain pieces of American iconography such as expensive land-cruisers to replace worn out farming vehicles; modern apartments to replace minute make-shift tents and the golden gate bridge to replace the searing travelling in a single direction for long stretches of time across sand and nothingness. The two boys are very much a part of a newer, more contemporary Kazakh mindset of elevating their positions in the world; building to the ownership of more grandeur things and climbing the proverbial ladder you might say formulates something resembling The American Dream. Ondas, whom represents a lesser contemporary, more classical mindset, stands in opposition to this thinking pattern; the notion of he being of a generation brought up prior to independence whilst still under Soviet rule feeling prominent.

In the mean time, Asa wants to own farmland; Tulpan's unwillingness to take his hand in marriage the only thing stopping young Asa from living his dream and that notion of whether Asa wants to effectively marry into her family so as to attain this or whether he genuinely loves her as who she is, is neatly captured by Dvortsevoy. The severity of the situation is highlighted to the lead during the opening few minutes when, following the attempt to come to some arrangement with Tulpan's family, Ondan points out that there are no longer any women left for Asa to marry. Not that this deters the man, his prolonged attempts at wooing Tulpan, whom more often than not is either kept off screen or whose face remains elusive to proceedings, veers the film away from its pseudo-documentary roots that are combining with light comedy anyway, and into doomed romance and a far bleaker tone. It is revealed Tulpan's family are careful in whom they select to marry their daughter and whilst it is her future being discussed, Tulpan is relegated to peering through beaded strings formulating a make-shift door as her father in the business management field instigates a class war into the film by rejecting what is effectively a 'pitch' on behalf of Asa and an extension of his family.

All of these ingredients are woven into the film rather spectacularly, if one were to stagger away from the film feeling as if it is like nothing one has ever seen before, then the chances are it will be because such approaches to such material have rarely been explored within such a locale as the expansive, desolate, barren terrain of a vast Kazakh steppe. This Kazakh, multiple award winner and Foreign Language Oscar representative culminating in a really quite engrossing and rather eye-opening account of dreams; trials; tribulations; clashes, of both a generational and class related nature, as well as a rarely depicted lifestyle brought to life in the most arresting of fashions.

Another film from Kazakhstan, but unlike the NYFF's 'Chouga,' far from being set in the newly rich urban part of the country. Dvortsevoy, a successful documentary filmmaker, chose to make this, his first feature, in the ethnographic mode, among shepherds in the Betpak Dala, the steppe, a region of scrubby grass, dirt, flatland, whirling wind storms and stormy skies. The technique is to work in near-wilderness, among non-actors, with nothing but camels or donkeys or rugged trucks to travel by, surrounded by a herd of sheep and a few goats, living in a yurt. The method and setting resemble those of Dava and Falorni's 'The Weeping Camel,' but the focus this time is not as anecdotal and the story raises fewer troubling questions. It's still not certain that the effect of "authenticity" means the events we're witnessing truthfully depict life in the steppe. But the sense of trying to adapt to a harsh environment and culture is powerful and the landscape is awesome, and the sheep births we witness are unquestionably real.

The protagonist is Asa (Askat Kuchinchirekov). He is a young sailor who's just finished his military service who comes out to the "Hunger Steppe" to live with the family of his sister Samal (Samal Eslyamova), headed by her husband, an older man, Ondas (Ondasyn Besikasov). Sailors draw their dreams under the lapels of their uniforms and Asa's sketch shows the plain with a yurt, children, camels, and the sun shining. Apparently he is from somewhere else (it's not clear how his sister got to be Ondas' wife) but he doesn't want city life, he wants to make his paradise out here. He dreams of prospering as a shepherd, doing so well he can buy solar panels to put on his yurt so he can have electricity. His pal is the nutty Boni (Tulepbergen Baisakalov), a transport driver whose truck is plastered with magazine photos of nude babes and who plays loud pop music as he drives madly across the plain. It's Boni who first brings Asa to the yurt of Ondas and who dreams and schemes with him.

Driven by Boni, Ondas takes Asa more than once a day's ride to a family who have an eligible daughter, the beautiful Tulpan (Tulip), whom the suitor only glimpses. She watches behind a screen. At these interviews Asa has an unfortunate tendency to dwell on a story about how he successfully fought an octopus. It doesn't seem to go over with Tulpan's aged dad (Amangeldi Nurzhanbayev ) or her mother (Tazhyban Kalykulova), who apparently has listened with a sympathetic ear to her desire to go off to college. Tulpan says she doesn't care for Asa, anyway, says his ears are too big. End of story. Ondas says that if Asa gets a wife, he can have a flock of his own, and only then. But there are no other women around. Tulpan becomes little more than Asa's dream, like the idyllic yurt and flock and prosperity and happy life. What can Asa do? Well, he can find a lost pregnant sheep and assist in its giving birth to a healthy lamb. But he still is very ambivalent about whether he wants to stay and face Ondas' disapproval or strike out for Sakhalin island as Boni wants or go to the capital, Astana, where there are probably jobs--and eligible women. But what stands out in 'Tulpan' is Asa's dream--the little picture under the collar of his sailor jacket that seems to draw him back every time he packs up his little valise and starts to go away.

Dvortsevoy populates his landscape and the yurt with noisy characters to break the sounds of silence and the roaring winds. Samal and her daughter Nika love to sing at the top of their lungs, with sometimes pleasing, sometimes grating effect. Beke is a little boy with a great memory who listens to the radio broadcasts in Russian and can recite the national and global and cultural news verbatim on Ondas' command. Ondas himself is often barking out harsh commands. There is the smallest boy, who runs around chirping and laughing all the time riding a wooden stick, an indomitable spirit and perhaps potentially as nutty as Boni.

The omnipresent sheep of Ondas' flock seem to be too often growing weak and dying. A vet (Esentai Tulendiev) has to come in with Ondas' boss to assess the cause: he decrees that the animals are not sick (or poisoned by chemical waste like the ones in the Naples region), buy just hungry. The yurt has to be moved to better grazing land.

This is an Arte co-production. It's not a great film by any means; it's technical aspects are minimal. But some will be impressed by its vividness. Asa is a winsome character and there are moments when the wind and the sky create a wild poetry. The sheep, in all their noise and disorder, fill the screen powerfully too. This may have been designed to be seen on television but it is powerful on a big screen.

The film won the Un Certain Regard Prize--Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema, 2008, and is part of the NYFF.

The fact that this film won almost every award it was nominated for is of little consequence to the average film goer. It is about life on the Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan. Yes, that Kazakhstan, but without Sasha Baron Cohen.

Life here is very hard. There is not a tree in sight, and the wind whips the dirt around mercilessly. Asa just returned from his tour of duty in the Russian Navy, and we hear him tell his potential in-laws of the things he encountered. He is after the hand of Tulpan, the only available bride in the area. He wants to settle down and raise sheep, but he must have a wife. No deal. She thinks his ears are too big, but I believe it is mama that wants her to do more than just be a wife who cooks and cleans and has babies on the steppes.

Asa keeps trying to win her as he tries to become a shepherd. He is not doing well at either.

The funniest part of the film is the vet. You can't describe what he does with a cigarette, but you have to see it.

It won't win any popularity contests, but it is worth seeing.

Tulpan (2008) was directed and co-written by Sergei Dvortsevoy. This film was co- produced in five different countries, but filmed primarily on the Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan. The movie is basically about unrequited love, but it has the feel of a documentary. (Tulpan is one of those movies where the first thing you do when you return home is to check out its country of origin in Wikipedia!)

Boiled down to basics, the film is about Asa, who has returned home to Kazakhstan after serving in the Russian navy. Now he wants to find a wife and settle down to the nomadic life style that apparently still exists in this harsh and unforgiving landscape.

Asa loves the beautiful Tulpan, whom he has barely glimpsed and we never see. While he is courting her he lives with his sister, her husband, and their three children. Asa apparently was a good sailor, but he's not really adept at the skills needed for life on the steppes. His brother-in-law wants him to leave, his sister wants him to stay, and Asa can't decide what he wants to do, or even what he'll be able to do.

I know very little about life lived in a yurt on the Asian grasslands. As this life is portrayed in the movie, it's not meant for dreamers or amateurs. People speak of the harsh beauty of the landscape, but I don't see it. (Well, I see the harsh part, but not the beauty. To me it looks cold, dusty, dry, windy, and forbidding.) Our species is very adaptable, and it's no surprise that a lifestyle has evolved that allows humans to survive in this environment. Whether Asa will choose that lifestyle, and whether he will survive it if he does choose it, are at the heart of the plot.

At the heart of the movie are the images of the Steppes of Central Asia, and the few rugged people who live there.

The life on the Kazakh steppe must be one of the hardest in the world, at least if its depiction in this film is anything to go by: a world of arid plains, dust storms, and post-Soviet motorised transport that moves no faster than a camel can walk. 'Tulpan' provides a heart-felt depiction of this life (one really feels one understands the people's love for the animals on which they depend after watching it); but is also full of sly, silly comedy, the story of a sailor who dreamed of becoming a shepherd. However, there's not much dialogue, and at times it could have done with a faster pace. But it's a nice insight into a world away from that which most of us live in.