{"id":8356,"date":"2010-02-22T22:22:54","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T06:22:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=8356"},"modified":"2010-02-22T22:23:15","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T06:23:15","slug":"kelin-ermek-tursunov-2009-kazakhstan-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=8356","title":{"rendered":"Kelin (Ermek Tursunov, 2009): Kazakhstan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Lea Encarnacion<\/a>. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kelin<\/a>, a story about womanhood and family life in Kazakhstan,\u00a0is director and writer\u00a0Ermek Tursunov<\/a>‘s first film. \u00a0Controversy surrounds this film as he\u00a0was beaten, assaulted, and almost thrown out of the country for making this film.<\/p>\n

In the snowy rural mountains of Kazakhstan, a wolf is spotted, its white fur matching the hillside snow, framed by wooden tree trunks. \u00a0A naked girl is seen in a small darkly lit makeshift room, being body painted as part of some sort of ritual. \u00a0There are two primal men, gambling against each other, in front of an elderly man. \u00a0The more aggressive man wins and the loser sets out on foot. \u00a0Outside in the snow, the girl runs after the man who lost. \u00a0In a passionate and dedicated demeanor, he cuts her arm and drinks her blood, as an act to make a promise mark to come back to get her.<\/p>\n

The title screens in big red letters against a black background. \u00a0There is no dialogue whatsoever. \u00a0The winning man brings the girl home on a \u00a0donkey in a departure ceremony, leaving her parents behind. \u00a0In his cave, he eats, takes off her ceremonial headdress, and sees her blood bite scars which she had been trying to hide from him. \u00a0Angered and in a state of defiance, he rapes her. \u00a0Next, she eats with his family in their hut where the mother sees her red scar on her chest. \u00a0She looks at her son in disapproval. The loser of the game and Kelin’s true lover returns to fight the man who won.<\/p>\n

In a crazy and enraged battle, he hits a wooden stick into the man’s eye, bloodying it. \u00a0He takes back the girl and the grandmother is forced to acknowledge her son’s fate. \u00a0This film did not require subtitles, even in the absence of dialogue, which goes to show how strong and well it communicates the character’s feelings and emotions with the audience members.\u00a0\u00a0The lead actress talent was amazingly strong and everyone was surprised to discover that she had never acted before, and probably never will act again ( which is a shame because she has amazing talent.)<\/p>\n

The themes of this film encompass the nomadic culture, shamanism, cult burials, to symbolism about female figures being the head of the household. \u00a0In reference to the shamanistic cult burial in Kelin<\/a>, it is all about being one. \u00a0The film is set in the second century, although it could have also been set in 400 BC. The allegorical meaning and symbolism of family life in rural Kazakhstan fills this movie up to the brim and I felt like I was transported into another place and time, a very foreign area and I was deeply immersed while I was watching this film. \u00a0I would say that Kelin<\/a> is one of the most culturally concentrated films I’ve seen all year and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in seeing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Lea Encarnacion. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Kelin, a story about womanhood and family life in Kazakhstan,\u00a0is director and writer\u00a0Ermek Tursunov‘s first film. \u00a0Controversy surrounds this film as he\u00a0was beaten, assaulted, and almost thrown out of the country for making this film. In the snowy rural mountains of Kazakhstan, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":618,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/618"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}