George Benlian on movies, books and few other things

"Tulpan" - A nice heartwarming discovery

"Tulpan" is not your mainstream movie. In contrary, shot in a documentary style, this moving simple tale has deeper meanings about life in a treeless, remote area in Southern Kazakhstan. We are very far from the Civilization despite Boney M being present in this desolated region through one of their song. "Tulpan" might have difficult and tense scenes however it remains a well made comedy full of witty humor specific to situations only possible in those forgotten areas where life is a continuous survival against harsh conditions of the nature.

Life could have been better to our young hero, an ex-marine with "both hands and legs" if only the parents of Tulpan; the only single woman in the region would have agreed to give her as a bride. Our young hero has no proper job and to make the matter worse, he has two big ears. This is cynicism at it's best with a heartwarming evolution but no Americanize victory and happy end.

Sergei Dvortsevoy succeeds giving us the bleak beauty of the steppe’s windswept landscape: the endless sky, the camel stampedes, and one of the most remarkable animal birth scenes. A definite crowd- pleas er able to touch us in its extreme conditions of life. After all, this is a movie with universal tendencies.

For more information about this movie, check www.tulpan.com.au

Karen Shakhnazarov's "The Vanished Empire"

 

This year, at the Russian Ressurection Film Festival, a retrospective of Karen Shakhnazarov movies were shown as part of the program. This included his latest movie released earlier this year and called "The Vanished Empire".

I have vaguely heard about Shakhnazarov without knowing much about him and his movies. I found out through my wife that he has Armenian origins and has made many popular and much loved movies since the eighties. I actually watched "Courier", his fourth movie dated from 1985 last week. I liked it but didn't think that it was worth writing about it in my blog.

However, with "The Vanished Empire" i felt the necessity to write about an era that many of my friends have actually lived. Like the character of Sergei Narbekov, it is not uncommon to hear from people in their fifties telling how when they were young, they used to buy beer and Rolling Stones albums in the black market. This is a definite nostalgic piece of cinema that contains lots of funny scenes but remains a melodrama. Set in the fall/winter of 1973-1974, this honnest look of Russian youth of that era has a great storyline where friendship, love and becoming adults are treated with realism in the context of the daily life in Moscow.

Twenty five years later, it is not surprising to see how that part of the World has changed. The same subject could have been filmed in 1974 and i guess the result would have been different. Looking at the past is always an emotional affair and Shakhnazarov being born in 1952 shared the same age of his main characters at that time. What touched me the most is the final scene where the two "friends" meet accidently in the airport twenty four years later. There is no Happy end in a Hollywoodian way. In contrary after all those years the sudden contact between the two old friends is felt as a heavy encounter because of a love story for the same girl.

As an Armenian, it was a pleasure to see one of the best Armenian actors, Armen Dzhigarkhanian in the role of the grand father, a famous retired archeologist with a macabre humor.