Just as in his earlier work – including Song from the Southern Seas (IFFR 2009) – Kyrgyz filmmaker Marat Sarulu again demonstrates his links to traditional life in Central Asia. An old man lives with his granddaughter in a village by the river. A simple life in an imposing landscape, which Sarulu sketches in calm, meticulously composed images.
Everything changes when the mother returns from the city to fetch her father and daughter. They’ll be much better off in the city, but the house and money that the mother deems within their reach turns out to be as intangible as a dream. In this minimalist drama, Sarulu shows how heartless reality forces itself on the three of them at the edge of a rail yard.
In evoking the feeling of sorrow about the fragility of existence, the director mirrors a trend in Japanese art that is called yugen.
Film details
- Country of production
- Kyrgyzstan
- Year
- 2014
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2015
- Length
- 178"
- Medium/Format
- DCP
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