Great Film overall

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Since I only understand a little Russian, I had to guess what was going on. This movie was set in Tazikistan. The terrain was semi-desert. There was grass mixed with desert and mountains. I wasn't sure whether it was in the 80s or the 90s in which the movie took place, because in one scene the heroine is dancing in a pumpkin outfit and an official is there with a red star. In addition, there were lots of troops around, especially tank drivers. That led me to believe it was set in the 80s, and the troops were Russian soldiers on the way to Afghanistan. It is also possible that this is set in 1999 and the soldiers are involved in inter factional post-Soviet fighting. In either case, it is a wild place, where life is very cheap. People are always shooting at each other, kidnapping people, and getting into petty disputes. It is obvious that this is a Muslim region. It is a very rough and wild place. This young women gets raped while walking in the woods near her village. The man is an actor who flies around with his troupe from village to village and seduces women along the way. The young woman gets pregnant. It is a horribly embarrassing and difficult situation for her proud and caring Father. He is mad at first. Her brother, though, is immediately supportive. He is demented, and the villagers seem to tolerate his eccentricity of running around the village with bottles attached to his neck, like he is an airplane, destroying property along the way. What villagers don't tolerate is a woman who has been raped. They believe that it is her fault and that she is a bad person. It is a big stigma. Her Father decides to find the culprit. He goes from village to village looking for him. Since his daughter revealed that it was an actor, the Father goes to local theater productions and accosts any male in the cast. In the meantime, his Daughter falls in love with a doctor who rides along on an ambulance. The doctor pretends to be his lover, and they are to be married. However, a cow falls from the sky and kills both her Father and her lover during the wedding. I guess the filmmaker is mixing reality with surreality to empathize the craziness of living in Central Asia. The movie was pretty good. I spent a bit of the time trying to figure where it was set. The village was on a rather large lake or a small sea. It appeared to be salinated water. That's why I thought it was the Aral Sea. However, during the credits I saw that it was filmed in Tadzikistan. The only sizable lake is near Tashkent, and only that area is not completely mountainous. The area in the film was somewhat mountainous, but more steppeland and desert.

I may recommend this movie for those who has a great enjoy of life. The music in the movie is the music of life. The movie itself shows the truth in the life, the truth which is difficult to correct or let me say, to change. Th life in the deserts like Farkhor is very difficult. I myself spend my life in such conditions. For those who never experienced this life maybe the movie is a bit funny. But for me, I didn't notice any comedy, but rather tragedy. Yes, the tragedy of the usual lie of Tajiks. The movie is in Tajik/Russian language. However it is written that the movie is in Russian only. Daler Nazarov is great in choosing composition. Long live Bakhtiyar Khudaynazarov!!!

I really enjoyed this movie. A great tragicomedy! True to form, the story is great and unusual written by Irakli Kvirikadze. The story has multiple layers, so I recommend one more viewing to grasp its richness. I highly recommend seeing other films written by Kvirikadze. His screenplays are very enjoyable with layers of complexities. Most recent is 27 missing kisses directed by his wife Nana Djordjadze. He collaborated often with his wife. A Chef in Love (american release 1996) was one such film that was nominated for the Academy Awards in 1997. A feast for the eyes. Irakli Kvirikadze was first known for both his writing and directing.His films were repeatedly banned in the 80s and 90s during Soviet rule. Today he is known simultaneously as the Fellini of post-soviet cinema and the leader in post-soviet renaissance.

The whole time I watched this movie, I was reminded of the films of Emir Kusturica. The setting in an eastern landscape (here: somewhere in the asian part of russia) and the grotesque characters could have been elements in Films of the bosnian director Emir Kusturica. But in this case it simply won't work. The film is simply boring.