Tulpan

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With a title of a Muesli one might find in Aldi, Tulpan is about as interesting and satisfying as said fictional cereal; the kind of film that gets critics in a tizzy and encourages the arthouse audience to find new and inventive lies on the brilliance of it all. Don't believe a word of it – Tulpan is as boring a movie I've seen in some time.

Asa (Baisakolov) has returned home to the bleak and desolate steppes of Kazakhstan after a stint in the Russian Navy to help his shepherding brother-in-law Ondas (Besikbasov) with his small flock and land himself a wife. He has his heart set on the only single girl in the area, Tulpan, even though he has never seen her (and the audience are treated to only a glimpse of the back of her head). Asa is bullied by the brutish Ondas (he's under pressure as too many of his sheep are having stillborn lambs), and dreams of moving to the city where he can be his own man.

A hark back to the docu-dramas of Robert Flaherty, writer-director Sergei Dvortsevoy isn't concerned very much with narrative or drama. He wants instead to hang around with this family, showing the world what its like to eek out a living in a harsh environment. He does this by treating the audiences to unending scenes where, understandably, nothing happens. It's an admirable attempt to show life-as-it-is, but there's nothing here to engage the audience. What we're left with is a threadbare story and a child who won't stop singing... At the top of her voice... All the time.

If one was to search for positives, they can be found in the amazing scene where Ondas is giving a newborn lamb the kiss of life and the sometime impressive visuals. There might be endless shots of nothing but the cinematography of Jolanta Dylewska brings to mind Freddie Young and how he made the desert come alive in Lawrence Of Arabia. Moments like these are few and far between, though.