Bored in Kazakhstan

Tonight was the final Cinema 10 film of the Fall 2009 Season. While I love what Cinema 10 does for the community and appreciate the hard work that goes into setting it up, sometimes the films presented are a bit of a let down. But I've never been so taken aback as I was tonight. It's not that "Tulpan (2008)" was terrible; the acting was fine, and quite a few of the shots contained beautiful images. It just wasn't interesting to me in the slightest. The plot sort of meanders around for an hour and a half, and there's never really any clear indication of what's going on or why we should care about the characters.

The title suggests that a girl named Tulpan will be the person of interest, and she is... sort of. Asa, the protagonist, tries desperately (sometimes) to win her affection, and seems to have turned her into a symbol of change and complacency. That is: once he weds Tulpan and mans his own flock and yurt, he'll be a happy person. The fact that we never see her face leaves a kind of mystery, but even that is not incredibly engaging. The movie begins with Asa's first attempt to court the girl, which predictably ends in a less than desirable fashion. From there, the director throws in about ten minutes of lingering shots on the desert farmland of Kazakhstan and the family's herd. What makes this movie so boring is the lingering and the superfluous information the audience is given. The director devotes an absurd amount of time to the family's animals, and while I understand the purpose - which is, of course, to show the importance of the flock - it's just not entertaining. Animals are not really characters, unless of course it's a single character and his dog placed out in the wilderness, in which case the narrator only has one outlet for interaction. (Or, Ahem...)In this case though, the animals are so numerous and interchangeable that almost any time spent on them seems like too much. In addition, too much importance was placed on the family members. While they were certainly played an integral role in Asa's life, they, like the animals, were the focus of a number of lingering shots that added almost nothing to the film. A little flavor here and there, perhaps, but it could have been worked into a cohesive plot.

Verdict: Not Stoked at all, God Dammit.I fell asleep somewhere around thirty minutes in, coming to and passing out again at various points. When I finally woke to the sound of bleating - a constant, whining reminder that we were stuck on a farm - I didn't feel the least bit guilty. I had missed nothing, and the plot still made perfect sense because it was so loose and wandering that I didn't need to be awake. I was bored to sleep and missed nothing. If you see this movie, make sure you have control of the volume, or stay far away from speakers, lest you have your ears bleated and screamed off by animals and children.