A romantic comedy about a former sailor who dreams of becoming a shepherd in his native steppe. The debut feature by documentary filmmaker Sergei Dvortsevoy won the main prize in Un Certain Regard at the 61st Cannes Film Festival.
After his navy service, Askhat returns to his native Kazakh steppe of Betpak-Dala. He lives in a yurt with his older sister Samal, her husband Ondas, and their children, but dreams of having his own home and a herd. Askhat is promised sheep, but only if he gets married. There is only one suitable bride in the neighborhood, a girl named Tulip. He tries to charm her parents, offering ten sheep and a chandelier, but to no avail: Tulip has seen the groom from behind her curtain and decided that his ears are too big.
The steppe of Betpak-Dala is best described through absence: only the thin line of the horizon can be seen wherever you look. There are no landmarks, no signs, no roads. Vegetation does not grow taller than half a meter and there is no greenery in sight. But the dusty, windy steppe is more than a background. It is part of the drama, an actor. Its vast expanses excite the main character, who, despite all the obstacles, dreams of finding a home here once again.
Sergei Dvortsevoy spent four years shooting. No one actually lives in Betpak-Dala—it is hard to reach, and nomadic shepherds cross it only occasionally. Plus, the documentary filmmaking method, to which Dvortsevoy remained faithful in his first feature film, takes time: first, he looks at how things work, then builds his own reality to inhabit and document the spontaneous events that take place in it.
The film will be screened in Kazakh and Russian (the Kazakh language is dubbed by Sergey Dvortsevoy).
Tulip
Director: Sergei Dvortsevoy
Kazakhstan, Russia, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, 2008. 100 min.
16+