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!
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.
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….
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