Dir: Ardak Amirkulov | Kazakhstan Drama 98′
ThIs haunting and atmospherically shot arthouse drama imagines the steppes of Kazakhstan during the deadly Soviet regime of collectivisation when it was claimed that no one would be hungry or poor during the Soviet famine of the 1920-30s.
Approximately one third of the Kazakh population purportedly perished, according to sources. The era is stunningly brought to life by Ardak Amirkulov in sultry black and white images that focus on the poetic and pitiful suffering of the people rather than resorting to sensationalism or melodrama.
The focus is Jupar, a starving herder woman, who embarks on a journey to find the place of her birth in the Land of Still Winds. With her two young children she is forced to scavenge for food in the bleak landscape. She comes across a dead horse and preserves a joint in salt to provide food for her two children as they travel through a barren wasteland. Vultures circle above them preying on the moribund bodies of people and animals.
Along the way she meets Baimukhan, a Soviet employee hated by everyone in the village. He has fallen into a ditch and Jupar helps him out, although we are not entirely sure why she shows him mercy.
Beautifully composed shots linger over a landscape where sickness prevails. Jupar is just one one of the victims of this cruel regime that has robbed the people of their farms, harvest and cattle promising an equality that never happened, instead they are reduced to poverty, and pitted against one another, the weak often poisoned and eaten by the strong who offered them contaminated crops. In one scene an old woman shares some millet with Jupar and her boys. But when they are sick they realise this was merely plan to kill them to satisfy her own hunger.
Just one of the setbacks in a gruelling journey where Jupar is forced to struggle against the forces of evil in the shape of wolves, birds of prey and the Red Army, all emblematic of the suffering Kazakhs faced during this harsh period of Soviet history. @MeredithTaylor
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