Tulpan (Review)

Director Sergey Dvortsevoy’s Tulpan is a poignant story about Asa (Askhat Kuchinchirekov), a Kazakh soldier who returns from a duty in the Russian Navy to his family’s remote, bucolic life on the southern steppe. Asa’s plans to marry a local girl named Tulpan (translates as Tulip) and follow his family’s nomadic tradition of herding and farming on the harsh terrain are thwarted by Tulpan’s unwillingness to be his bride — she thinks his ears are too big — and his simple ideas about making it as a farmer are challenged by his callous brother-in-law Ondas (Ondasyn Besikbasov).

With his best friend Boni (Tulepbergen Baisakalov) by his side, Asa struggles with the daunting physical and psychological demands of remaining on the steppe rather than seeking an urban existence like others of his generation. Tulpan is a neorealist film of exquisite beauty and eloquence that captures the life-and-death demands of a seemingly alien landscape within the context of a generational paradigm shift in Central Asia. Grade: A

This article appears in Aug 19-25, 2009.