Is the screen Chiller CLAUSTRO (VZYAPERTI) the first neo-Gothic Sovietcore film?
The arrival of this film last September was heralded by elaborate installations about it in select cinemas – a rare promotional effort on behalf of such a low budget affair. Had it not been for that, I would not have been one of the dozen or so punters who turned up for a late showing at a central cinema in Almaty late last September.
Filmed in Kazakhstan and by Qara Studios, CLAUSTRO or VZYAPERTI, constitutes one subtle and quite distinctive hour and thirty minutes of supernatural chills.
Two titles for it are out there – VZYAPERTI being the most common and which translates as `Locked In`. This however is also the name of a recent Hollywood thriller, as you will discover should you attempt a search on this film, even in Russian. So, I am going to go with CLAUSTRO which sounds fresher and more evocative anyway.
Kazakhstan’s brush with cinematic horror has been more bite-sized and recent that that of the Great Bear’s, so CLAUSTRO might be taken as something of a test case. It is significant, therefore, to note that this film shines a flickering lamp into the current relationship between Kazakhstan and its former overlord in the in the North, the Russian Federation.
Almaty inspiration.
Shot two years earlier, but released in September 14th of this year, CLAUSTRO adapts a novel by an Almaty novelist, Alexander Mendybaev who has posted online a number of supernatural suspensers, the one in question being TENANTS from 2017 (since published by Meloman in the summer of this year).
The bright young director responsible for the on-screen realization of it is 35-year-old Olzhas Bayalbaev whose directorial debut was with the film GOK, also released this year, which tackles the thorny issue of corruption among civil servants. However, Bayalbaev grew up with R.L Stine stories (as he told an interviewer with Optimism K.Z on 14th September this year) and horror was in his blood.
As for the screenplay, another Almaty resident, 32 -year-old Sabina Tusupova, known for her part in the nineties-based drama ZERE from 2021, teamed up with the author Mendybaev to write this. The retro-modernist musical score, so important in an ambience lead production such as this, was brought to us by a twenty-something musician known to many as Dana Tunes, or Dana Zulpykhar.
Roman Zhukov, 35, from Aktobe (Kazakhstan) who also appeared in the Kazakh portmanteau horror SCARY STORIES TO TELL AROUND THE CAMPFIRE from 2018, plays the main protagonist. His stately side-kick however hails from Rostov-on-Don in Russia -Elizaveta Yurieva- who starred l in the Russian TV series CLINICAL 13, broadcast last year, which fuses medical drama with the occult.
CLAUSTRO will resonate with anyone who spent any time in Soviet period housing. The visual iconography here is all of that and its corresponding period. From this base the proceedings conjure up a sense of spookiness. As well as landline phones and record players, we get to see Soviet era TV shows, toys and confectionery. The brown and grey/pale blue colour scheme is well judged and some of Bardag Arginiov’s photography could be stills from Vogue magazine or the like.
Entrapment.
Max (Zhukov) is driving on an errand to hook up with an old friend. We discover him as he motors through the steppes and alongside a glittering reservoir (much of the film was shot in Kapchagai – AKA Konaev, a popular tourist destination on the banks of the Lli river). On arrival he finds himself in a standard Soviet block of flats and interrupting a large family get-together which his friend enjoins him to become a part of.
It proves to be a predictable mix of tedium and drunken flirtation until, that is, the elderly paterfamilias at the head of the table begins to intone some odd, witchy imbroglio….
Max leaves the room and there meets Kima (Yurieva), the snooty resident of the flat, who has done the same. When they head back, they are aghast to find that all the guests have vanished and the room appears to have not been inhabited at all in recent times. Next, they discover find that there is no way out – all the exit doors lead them back to where they began. They are entombed in a world of endless receding mirrors reflecting mirrors, like some nightmarish Escher creation. The child phantoms then begin to appear and they are to learn that they will never escape until the issues of these ghosts from their past are laid to rest….
In fact, despite the striking nature of the premise, we have here a traditional trope from many a ghost story, that is the righting of old wrongs. One could even frame this film as making a comment on Kazakhstan ‘s ongoing troubled connection with its own Soviet heritage from which it is unable to escape whilst haunted by specters of past injustices.
Mendybaev and Bayalbaev deserve some credit for noticing, at last, the potential for neo-Gothic ambience that Soviet housing has long had. This is even a bit homely. (We see Kima, for example, painting her toe nails in a languid way whilst listening to Soviet jazz on her record player). The token love interest that arises from the two glamorous inmates does not seem forced, but it does detract a little from the claustrophobia of the central situation.
CLAUSTRO took me back to the Russian film KONVERT which I reviewed here a few years back. Both are supernatural dramas produced on a limited budget, oozing the atmosphere of post-Soviet urban environments and with redemption themes at their cores. CLAUSTRO could even pass for a Russian film, with its Slavic cast. It is a bit of a mystery, however, why this film, unlike KONVERT, should be restricted having an 18+ certificate.
CLAUSTRO is not a shocker but a stylish and indeed somewhat `hipsterish` art house movie. It is not all that likely to make many waves in mainstream cinema but it remains to be seen if it can kickstart a new interest in the horror genre among Kazakh film makers.
Lead image: Vlast.KZ