A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The Russian filmmaker Sergey Dvortsevoy had gained a reputation for documentaries, but in the 2008 TULPAN he tries his hand at fiction with this story set in Kazakhstan. After serving in the Russian Navy, Asa (Askhat Kuchinchirekov) returns to the Kazakh steppe, living with his sister (Samal Yeslyamova) and brother-in-law (Ondasyn Besikbasov) while he tries to court the only unmarried young woman within hundred of kilometres.As a sort of documentary, TULPAN will be an interesting experience for viewers in the West, capturing the desolation of the Kazakh steppe and the hard work that herders there must do to eke out a living. Some of the younger characters feel the draw of the big city, whose modernity offers them an easier life than the dull steppe. As a linguist, I found that the film represented well the Russian-Kazakh code-switching common after the Soviet era, which only underscores how these people feel torn between two worlds. The arguable climax of the movie comes with Asa assisting the real-life birth of a sheep, which is depicted realistically so that the audience learns something, but thankfully not too graphically.But as fiction, I am less impressed with the film. I get the feeling that Asa's pursuit of Tulpan was the centre of the original script, but was mostly set aside after Dvortsevoy decided to improvise much of the film. The result is a lack of substance outside the pure observation of traditional life. All in all, it's worth seeing once and you'll learn something, but it's no classic.

I had no idea what to expect from "Tulpan". I can't recall where in my movie trolling I'd decided to rent and watch it. Would it be one of those small, eccentric films with a quirky character in the lead? Those can work but I've been a little leery of them lately. The writer/director, Sergei Dvortsevoy, who is 47, is from Kazakhstan where Tulpan is set and has been involved in a half dozen films as writer and director. But I enjoy Russian cinema and Kazakhstan was once part of the Soviet Union so maybe… Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country although it does border on the Caspian and Aral Seas. The steppe where the film takes place is the largest dry steppe region in the world and the film offers dramatic vistas of this flat, flat plain where people have lived as nomadic herders for centuries and continue to raise sheep, goats, camels in one of the least densely populated regions on earth.Asa, the main character, has come home from his duties as a sailor in the navy. He hopes to arrange a marriage for himself with the help of his sister and brother-in-law with a local girl he's never met, Tulpan. There is much delicious dry humor in this set up. Asa hopes to set himself up as nomad, living his life in his yurt, scratching out an existence from the hard-scrabble land. The film beautifully portrays for us in almost documentary fashion the life Asa hopes to achieve.His sister's family is lovingly presented. His sister is beautiful and loves her daughter whose constant singing irritates the stern, hard working father, and her young son who gallops about pretending the stick he is straddling is like the horse his father rides. But the authenticity of the life presented here is documentary like and I mean that in the best possible way. The young boy appears to not to be aware of the camera at all as do all of the actors, camels included. So what we see seems a very authentic look at a fragile way of life.And therein lies another of the beauties of "Tulpan". As the attempt at arranging the marriage runs into roadblock after roadblock, we see how much Asa loves that existence. His brother-in-law wonders why Asa would choose such a difficult existence, given the choice. But Dvortsevoy, while showing the daily life and death struggles a herdsman must endure, is also able to demonstrate why someone would do whatever to live a rich life in such a beautiful yet primitive place.I can't recommend "Tulpan" highly enough. See it if you can. I have a feeling what has been captured here will not be around for much longer.

Most of the first hour or so of this movie was dull, boring and unnecessary...if not for my wife asking me questions, I think I would have fallen asleep. I must admit that once we got to the point of the film where sheep are birthing their lambs that the film began to pique my interest, but by then, I really couldn't care less about the characters, and wanted it to end.Also the insistent, braying, bleating, etc. of the different animals was extremely annoying and irritating, as was the kids when they would be loudly singing off-key. I'm sure this was intentional, but irritating nonetheless.I know this film got superb reviews, which is why I rented it in the first place. But why? Because it showed a slice of life that few of us ever see? That's the only thing I can think of. And if so, make a documentary about it.

Kazakhstan is one of those dusty Central Asian countries left over from the break-up of the Soviet Empire and probably best known in the West as the putative birthplace of Sasha Baron Cohen's media clown Borat. In this film the documentary filmmaker Sergei Dvortsevoy goes some distance toward giving us westerners a taste of real life amongst shepherds on the steppe. Fresh out of the Russian navy submarine service, Asi goes to stay with his sister Samal and her sheep herdsman husband Ondas. Despite the isolation, wind, dust and extreme temperatures, Asi dreams of having his own flock and settling down. But Ondas refuses to help him with the flock until he finds a wife, for a single man cannot be a herdsman. The film opens with Ondas negotiating to marry Asi off to Tulpan, the daughter of a neighbour, but Tulpan, who remains behind a curtain and is never actually seen, rejects him – "His ears are too big". Asi tries again, alas to no avail.This plot is really secondary to an account of what it is like to live and work in a place like this. Ondas's lambs keep dying and the vet is called (how is a mystery). He diagnoses lack of feed, so the family must pack up its Yurt and move elsewhere. Much comedy is provided by a young injured camel being transported in the vet's sidecar, followed by the camel's mother which bites anyone who gets too close. Ondas and Samal's three children also provide plenty of entertainment. The oldest girl sings a mournful folksong all the time, the older boy recites entire news bulletins learned from the portable radio he keeps with him, and the younger boy is just plain cute. Asi's tractor driver friend, with his collection of pin-ups in his cab, also provides some amusement.Life on the steppe is tough, but brings with it a certain amount of freedom. Modernity, in the form of the official news bulletins, parodies of the official style, is at a good distance away. The sheep flocks are big enough to provide a living as long as there is a demand for their wool. Ondas, a proud tough man, would not be happy living in a town. Samal might, though. Dvortsevoy does not idealise his characters and they are all the more appealing. However, I can't see the steppes becoming a tourist destination except for some very hardy travellers.