Christopher Culver The Russian filmmaker Sergey Dvortsevoy had gained a reputation for documentaries, but in the 2008 TULPAN he tries his hand at fiction with this story set in Kazakhstan. After serving in the Russian Navy, Asa (Askhat Kuchinchirekov) returns to the Kazakh steppe, living with his sister (Samal Yeslyamova) and brother-in-law (Ondasyn Besikbasov) while he tries to court the only unmarried young woman within hundred of kilometres.As a sort of documentary, TULPAN will be an interesting experience for viewers in the West, capturing the desolation of the Kazakh steppe and the hard work that herders there must do to eke out a living. Some of the younger characters feel the draw of the big city, whose modernity offers them an easier life than the dull steppe. As a linguist, I found that the film represented well the Russian-Kazakh code-switching common after the Soviet era, which only underscores how these people feel torn between two worlds. The arguable climax of the movie comes with Asa assisting the real-life birth of a sheep, which is depicted realistically so that the audience learns something, but thankfully not too graphically.But as fiction, I am less impressed with the film. I get the feeling that Asa's pursuit of Tulpan was the centre of the original script, but was mostly set aside after Dvortsevoy decided to improvise much of the film. The result is a lack of substance outside the pure observation of traditional life. All in all, it's worth seeing once and you'll learn something, but it's no classic.

paul2001sw-1 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.

johnnyboyz 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.

druid333-2 Any film that depicts cultures that are mostly unknown here in the west are always a welcome one for me.Kazhak film maker, Sergei Dvortsevoy's 'Tulpan' is another one of those cinematic open windows. This gentle fable concerns a young man named Asa,who has just been released from the Russian Navy,and yearns for a wife,so he can be a right & proper shepherd. The fact that there are a lack of young women presents a problem. Asa,with the help of his friend tries to convince the parents of the last young woman,Tulpan (whom we never see on camera),that he is the man for her. Tulpan's parents are not impressed with Asa's tall tales & tells Asa that his ears are too big. Asa lives with his sister,Samal,her mean,brutish lout of a husband,Ondas & their three children. There are several sequences of Asa & Ondas dealing with the on going problem of lambs being born dead,as well as other problems. Sergei Dvortsevoy,who is generally known for his documentaries,directs & co writes (with Gennady Ostrovskiy)his first fictional film that still manages to convey a documentary feel. The unvarnished photography of Jola Dylewska depicts the harsh & breathtakingly beautiful landscape of the Kazakh steppes. Does Asa ever manage to get to Tulpan to ask for her hand in marriage? It's up to you to find out the answers to this & others. Comparisons to films such as 'Nanook Of The North',as well as 'Atanarjuat:The Fast Runner' will pop up. Spoken in Kazakh & Russian with English subtitles. Not rated by the MPAA,this film contains some profanity & some scenes that could upset young children involving an on screen birth of a lamb,and some dead lambs depicted on screen.