Category: Central Asian Cinema.

SATAN CLAWS ARE COMING TO TOWN!

THIS BOLD NEW OCCULT THRILLER IS THE FLAGSHIP FOR A NEW GENERATION OF KAZAKH FILMS – AND THE LOCAL PUNTERS ARE TAKING NOTICE!

With Tatraria Films comes an 18+ certificated `mystical drama thriller` called Dastur, which is Kazakh for Tradition

Throughout its 90 minutes we get a kind of Revenge Tragedy (the film’s tagline is an old Kazakh saying: Let the neck answer for what the hands have done). This is served up with a demonic possession scenario and set in the here-and-now of contemporary Kazakhstan.

The mastermind of this comprises of one Kuanysh Beisekov. He is a 28-year-old director who studied photography after quitting a mathematics course. Before Dastur he has been known only for something quite different. For YouTube he directed a series of popular musical comedy shorts entitled Irina Karatovna.

The players are not that much more well-known either. The most mature of the actors, Aldabek Shalbaev at 65 plays the unsympathetic role of the scheming father of a rapist has done big screen time before in the gangland thriller Taraz (2016).

The lead actor consists of the Almaty resident Ermek Shynbolatov who has done some television work before now, having appeared in the melodrama serial Togzhan (2022) about the lives of television journalists. The crucial female lead is taken by Nurai Zhetkergen. At only 18-years-old this is her first role in a feature film.

The female writer Kazybek Orazbek, who had scripted the comedy Steal Your Money also last year was the main writer alongside Aldar Zhaparhan, who seems to be more of a newcomer.

Shot in the arm.

Released on December 28th last year, Dastur arrived as a sizzling meteorite that hit the earth just on the eve of the long-awaited winter break in Kazakhstan. With lurid promotional graphics and a provocative title, the new film could not have been more of a challenge to the vanilla family comedy fare which hits the screens in this season.

Not known for its edgy horror films, Kazakh cinema has made some reasonable attempts to emulate Korean or Japanese horror. For example, M-Agent (from2013) featured the spirit of a young woman bent on vengeance and had an interesting middle-aged woman for a heroine and In The Dark from 2018 was your classic `don’t-go-hiking-in-the-mountains` yarn and worked on that level, yet both could not escape a sense of being cottage industry products.

Vzyapherti from last year (and reviewed above) was quite refreshing, being a well-made ghost tale (rather more than full horror) but, the Kazakh director aside, seemed somewhat ethnic Russian in its whole cast and outlook.

 Then there is Tor (Grid), also from last year, This might be called `psychological horror` with a sort of update on Kafka’s The Trial but would be too `mundane` for most horror film devotees.

Dastur is as full on horror as it is full on Kazakh and it may well deserve its reputation for being Kazakhstan’s first `true` horror motion picture. Release the bats!

NOT a family comedy for once….[KZ.Kursiv.media]

Keeping it real.

What ensures the effectiveness of Dastur is its docudrama like approach to the narrative. The first half of the film presents us with a sort of bird’s eye view of life in a present-day Kazakh village in the summer. We see an end of term school celebration, some male-on male bullying, and tensions between generations. The otherworldly elements arrive by stealth, forestalling any resistance. Friedkin’s over celebrated 1973 classic The Exorcist, which pulls the same trick, could well have been the template here. (Indeed, the film contains a cheeky self-referential wink: one of the main characters, the young Bolat, is seen wearing a The Exorcist baseball cap in one sequence).

Dastur neither boasts nor needs a panoply of special effects. Nevertheless, the one unsettling spectacle of a man creeping on the wall is achieved with audacious simplicity,

Villagers.

After the above-mentioned scene setting, the focus falls on the two young protagonists, Bolat and Diana. The former represents the spoilt and wayward son of a wealthy livestock farmer and the latter a desirable and talented daughter from a more modest local background.

One fateful evening, following the school celebration, a dissipated Bolat takes Diana by force. For this he is flung into the jail of the regional police force to await trial. Bolat’s father, however, is a bigshot in the local community and soon he sets the wheels of exculpation in motion.

The loaded daddy proposes a traditional way out. If Bolat makes an honest woman of Diana, by marrying her, this will erase the sexual indiscretion – and free his son.

The elders scheme to get Diana married to her abuser [KZ.Kursiv.media]

Diana’s parents are set against this outrageous imposition and spurn many entreaties to make it happen. Money talks, however, and they, at length, settle for a dowry of ten million tenge (the local currency) in cash. The wedding which follows is a tense farce. On the wedding night Diana vanishes and Bolat finds that she has attempted to hang herself in the forest. With a new found tenderness he takes her to his parent’s home and tends to her behind locked doors, ignoring any attempts his mother or father make to intervene.

What happens next is that a two headed calf is born on the father’s farm and Bolat’s mother is spooked by freak television broadcasts showing Diana as a young girl. This is only the beginning of a spectral rampage….

Plenty here to creep you out [KZ.Kursiv.media]

There are parallels here with Carrie (1976) and, in terms of the melodramatic focus on family differences, Hereditary (2018).

Wider relevance.

The very title of the film signposts one of the main themes here: the iniquitous nature of some of the customs still in place in central Asia outside of the major cities.

A switched-on Kazakh might even notice some arch allusions to the real-life murder case centred around Salthnat Nukenova. (In brief, the wife of the ex-Minister of the National Economy, Kuandyk Bishimbyaev, died of bodily harm which it is alleged was inflicted on her by her husband. It is a hot topic in Kazakhstan and the investigation is ongoing).

Yet despite this apparent critique of Kazakh cultural heritage, the sole hero of the film – like the catholic priest in The Exorcist – is an old school holy man, an imam.

Success story.

My experience of getting to see this film met with unique obstacles. On the first attempt I was informed that all the tickets had sold out and on the second I just managed to get one but shared the cinema with a packed crowd of ethnic Kazakhs. (Contrast this with my more typical experience of finding myself in a near empty hall). Needless to say, Dastur has been granted an extended run in many cinemas.

For me it was the impassioned performances that I found most notable. (Shynbolatov told Elle Magazine in January 2024 that he visited a psychiatric facility to prepare for his role. It was not a wasted expedition.) The unsettling ambience of this film is generic enough to please the horror film demographic yet it bears its own stamp and stays true to Kazakh sensibilities. Also, it blindsided me with an unexpected plot development.

Main image: Kinopoisk.ru

POLICE AND THIEVES ON THE STREET.

A raw Kyrgyz gangster-movie-with-a-heart makes waves in Kazakstahn thanks to a Russian translation.

Police and thieves on the street

Oh, yeah

Scaring the nation with their

Guns and ammunition. Junior Murvin (song)

To date the only modern cultural association that I could make with Kyrgyzstan was the charming pop band Gorod 312. I doubt that I am alone in knowing very little of Kyrgyz cinema. That which comes to the attention of the world’s stage tends to be the kind that pleases the niche viewership of cineastes who like films from this part of the world to be contemplations on village life and so on.

Against this background, the emergence of RAZBOI (Robbery) this year represents a refreshing green shoot – not so much in Kyrgyz cinema but in its acceptance outside of its own country.

(TRAILER HERE).

This film is urban and concerns the here-and-now and can speak to anyone from any culture.

 A movie with a 50,000-dollar budget, RAZBOI however, has not penetrated the art house cinemas of New York, London or Paris yet, but, thanks to the ongoing lingua franca which is Russian it has begun wowing a new audience in Kazakhstan.

The film has been gracing Kazakh cinemas since 19th January of this year and the director of Kinopoisk and Kinoplex cinemas (who are responsible for the screenings) Yurlan Bukhurbaev told Mail KZ (February), after noting that the showings drew good crowds, that ` a certain excitement has developed around the film. `

Made in Bishkek.

After being shot in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, RAZBOI then got professionally dubbed into Russian in a studio in Moscow. Running for 84 minutes and released with no age certificate, it is very much not a `family movie`.

The stark title says it all: this is a `criminal drama` just as advertised, having something in common with both the gangster and heist subgenres, as well as the `police procedural`. The creators claim a genuine news story from Bishkek as their starting point.

The directors are the 48-year-old Maksat Zhumaev, who hails from Naryn in Kyrgyzstan and Azamat Ismailov, both quite new to the game. Likewise, many of the players seem to be new faces – at least outside of their home country. Atai Omurbekov starred in Empty House (2012) a bleak social realist fable (which I have seen) about a young woman’s attempt to escape from the poverty of her milieu. I have drawn a blank on the other names, but they include:  Adyl Bolorbekuulu, Zhyldyzbek Kaseyinov, Bek Bostonbaev and Uchkun Absalamov.

Azamat Izmailov (Picnob.com)

Armed greed.

One late winter in Bishkek an assortment of five ruthless outlaws are busy committing a string of robberies throughout the city. Their modus operandi is as simple as it is bold. They intercept vehicles transporting hard cash from bank to bank and take off with the loot. These mercenaries are also cold-blooded killers who show no scruples about gunning down whoever should stand in their way. Life is cheap for them.

Meanwhile, a police task force is not quite hot on their heals and indeed, seems to be outwitted by their quarry. The relationship between the cops and robbers is one of a kind of Cold War. Espionage even plays a part in the proceedings with an attractive young police officer in plainclothes used to elicit the phone number of one member of the gang so that he may be tracked and a street cleaner who is an undercover cop.

In this `man’s world` of phone calls and car trips, both sides have to contend with issues. With the robbers there is the question of trust: who of their posse can really be relied upon? The police have girlfriend and wife problems, with their lovers feeling abandoned as the twenty-four-seven demands of the hunt take its toll.

The stakes are high and the contemptuous killing of one of the law enforcement brethren during a stake out forms the centerpiece of this film. We get to see a dignified police funeral juxtaposed with the man’s would-be fiancé in the process of marrying a rival suitor.

Of course, the men in uniform will vanquish the baddies, but will pay a heavy price in so doing….

Tragic realism.

Despite some tense, indeed harrowing, sequences RAZBOI is no action movie. The narrative is more of an unheroic slice-of-life one. Enough screen time is devoted to the criminals to get across the fact that they are all too human. We even get a hint as to their motivation: we see one of their number, on the pretext of going out to buy groceries, call on his ailing mother in a rundown country bungalow.

In fact, it is only the violence instigated by the gangsters – shown in an unvarnished but not gratuitous way -that identifies them as obvious wrongdoers.

The film showcases some explosive acting and this is supported by a classical-electronic score that plays throughout all of the film (the exception being the police funeral which makes use of Kyrgyz rap to good effect).

RAZBOI climaxes in a way reminiscent of a Jacobean revenge-tragedy with needless slaughter all round. The consequences of violent crime are brought home and the trigger-happy bling-centered lifestyle of the gangsters is far from glamourised.  The film is not cynical though: the end credits name check an actual policeman – Marat  – who lost his life in the real life crime case which inspired this film.

Flagship success.

In the same interview quoted in Mail KZ Mr. Bukharbaev went onto to say:

`This is an example of the fact that huge budgets and state support are not always needed to realise a hit production. `

Indeed, the 75% full cinema that I attended on February 3rd was quite new to me. I also noted that the audience was not quite what I might have expected. I had envisioned this as being a film for youngish men – yet behind me sat a row of chic unaccompanied Kazakh ladies.

Lead image: Instagram.