FREE-CULTURE: Sergei Dvortsevoy

Tulpan is the feature film debut of Sergei Dvortsevoy, who has earned an international reputation over the past decade for his lyrical and heartfelt documentaries focused primarily on life in his native Kazakhstan. Exuding the same love of landscape and interest in the details and habits of daily life as the documentaries, Tulpan tells the story of a young Kazakh man returning to the Hunger Steppe after his military service with the goal of becoming a shepherd. Hoping to marry into a family with a herd, the awkward young man must first win over the object of his affection –the Tulpan of the film’s title—who refuses his advances. Dvortsevoy’s attention to the cadence of life on the steppe and the appeal of his actors – most of whom had not lived on the steppe before being cast in the film – give a rare energy to this remarkable film, which evinces both a rigorous intelligence and the big-hearted appeal of Chaplin. Yet behind Tulpan’s winning charm looms the larger question of whether the traditional nomadic existence remains a viable option for younger Kazakhs, and what will become of the region itself.

"Tulpan” is an amazing film. It shows such an unfamiliar world, it might as well be Mars. This is a place where the horizon is a straight line against the sky in every direction. There are no landmarks, no signs, no roads. No vegetation grows much more than a foot or two. It is dry, dusty, cold and windy, and nothing seems to be green. This is the world “Tulpan” takes place in, and I can think of only one other story that would feel at home there: “Waiting for Godot.”

Yet the people love it. They are yurt dwellers in Kazakhstan, the largest landlocked nation on Earth. They live on what is named in the credits as the Hungersteppe and raise sheep. We meet a young sailor named Asa, discharged from the Russian navy, who has come here to live with his sister Samal, her husband, Ondas, and their children. As the story opens, Asa, Ondas and his buddy Boni are negotiating with a poker-faced man and his hostile wife for the hand of their daughter, Tulpan (“Tulip”). (Roger Ebert)

FREE-CULTURE

vendredi 28 août 2009

Sergei Dvortsevoy - Tulpan (2008)

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