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Hello, and welcome to the audio
commentary for Steppenwolf.

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My name is David Flint, and I'm a film
critic and pop culture historian, and

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the editor of Desperate Living, which
you can find online at desperate-living

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.com. Over the next hour and 40 minutes
or so, I'll be talking about this movie,

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the themes it plays with, how it fits
into the established genre cinema.

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Notably, director Adol Khan Yersinov
stated that this film is genre cinema in

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its purest form and I'll take a look at
what he might mean by that and how that

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plays out in both the film's visual
style and the nods it makes to other

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movies, other genres across the board.
Some of which are obvious, some of which

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may be a little bit less obvious.

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I'm assuming that you've already watched
the film before listening to this

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commentary.

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Obviously, I might be dropping the odd
spoiler here and there.

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Not that this is the film that has the
kind of sudden plot twist that can be

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really ruined by that. But still, if for
whatever reason you have come here

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before watching the movie properly, I
can't imagine why you would have done

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that. But, you know, you never know.

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Any case, just stop now, turn the
commentary off, and start the film

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again. Watch the movie, come back,
listen to this later.

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I should also say that I'm not going to
be doing a scene-by-scene description of

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what is happening on screen at any
particular point.

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I'm not the filmmaker, I'm just a
critic, and I'm assuming that most of

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you can see what's going on on screen
just as well as I can.

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So if major plot points sail by while
I'm talking, that's fine.

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I'm looking at the bigger picture, not
picking up very specific individual

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points, but obviously anything important
that I need to mention, I will do. But

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generally speaking, as I say, I'm
looking at the bigger picture, the

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themes, the influences, the cultural
reference points of the film, rather

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than just describing them.

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what's happening on screen. This isn't
an audio description track.

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As we've seen during the opening titles,
right away the film acknowledges where

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the title comes from with the quote from
Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, which nicely

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sets up where the film will go and the
nature of the main character.

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Though arguably which main character
might be a bit more ambiguous than we

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think.

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Obviously, calling the film Steppenwolf
immediately brings to mind the 1927

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existentialist novel, which was filmed
in 1974.

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That version of Steppenwolf is long
overdue a new release, by the way.

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But that's a different story.

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I mean, it certainly seems that
Yersinov, as both writer and director of

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this film, is making a nod towards the
inspiration of the novel's themes with

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the film's title.

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He does that with a couple of things in
these opening scenes that I'll come back

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to in a second.

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But this is obviously a story that has
little in common with Hess's book

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narratively. It's perhaps more
atmosphere or a vibe that plays as an

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inspiration.

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Still, it's nice to see the connection
acknowledged, even if this isn't in any

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tangible way a genuine adaptation of the
book.

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This image that we've just seen, the
shot in the doorways, obviously a nod to

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John Ford's The Searchers, which of
course shares the general narrative with

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this film, the search for a kidnapped
child.

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It's certainly an early sign that this
is a Western movie as much as anything

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else, or at least a Western-influenced
movie.

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There's an in-depth discussion elsewhere
on this disc about Westerns, post

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-Westerns, and whether or not we can
call films that don't take place in the

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Old West.

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Westerns.

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Or not.

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So I'm not going to go over that to any
great degree.

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But the themes of Westerns are obviously
often universal ones. Stories that could

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work in different times and places.

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You can look at a movie like John
Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 or

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something like Fort Apache the Bronx
where the latter emphasises the

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connection of Western cinema to
contemporary crime and action cinema

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right away in the title.

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Or perhaps more recently, and more
connected to the film that we're

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watching now, many of the crime movies
that have emerged from Eastern Europe

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and Asian cinema over the last couple of
decades that play on Western movie risks

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of revenge, rivalry, the fight to
control a land.

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It's not for nothing that we tend to
refer to any sort of lawless environment

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as being like the Wild West, after all.

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Peter Adamski's 2019 Polish film Ethan
even plays on that in the title where a

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community dominated by gangs is
presented as being very much in line

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with those lawless western towns where
corruption, violence and rivalry rules

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the day.

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The opening scenes of this film from the
pre-credit sequence

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to what we're seeing now have a
genuinely unsettling feel to them.

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Not only because at this stage we have
no real idea who is who or what is

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happening but because it all feels
incredibly tense and apocalyptic.

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I use that word deliberately and we'll
come back to the whole world of post

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-apocalypse cinema and where this film
fits into that a little later on.

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But there is a sense of immediate unease
and bleakness here that I got genuinely

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uncomfortable when I first watched the
movie.

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A lot of this is down to the way the
film looks, it's down to the music, it's

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down to the general vibe of the
characters.

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Because we're not told anything.

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And that's...

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how the film will progress of course you
know we're given as much information as

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we need to follow the story as it's
happening but we're not bogged down with

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backstory with character development
with anything else that gets in the way

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or maybe makes makes things easier for
us again we'll come back

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to talking about the look of the film
the music and so on and so forth as this

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commentary goes along

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You know, I think we can see the
connection to the Wild West scenario in

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a lot of real life situations that are
playing out in countries where

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revolutions or social collapse has taken
place.

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And I think one reason why this film
feels so immediately unsettling when we

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watch it is because a lot of it, a lot
of the images, a lot of the actions

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feel very familiar from what we see
going on in numerous Middle Eastern

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countries and of course in Ukraine right
now.

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These images of executed prisoners,
gun-toting men in the wastelands,

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shattered families feel very much like a
world that we now see on the TV news.

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The fact that it takes the film a little
while to reveal just who are the

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official authority figures, the police,

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and who are the quote-unquote
terrorists, is pretty telling.

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This is a scenario where there's no
sense of control beyond that which

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various rival groups, gangs we might
call them, I'm including the police

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here, they just grab from each other,
take what they can, they're only looking

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out for themselves, and each side, of
course, is as dangerous and corrupt as

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the other.

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opening of this film to be so
uncomfortable because it has an

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authenticity and a realism about it that
you don't often find.

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The violence is casual and brutal,
normalized abuse that comes with a need

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to cling on to power.

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And it's impressively un-graphic. This
is the sort of film where you tend to

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think that you've seen a lot more than
you have.

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simply because of the sounds, the
inference, and the indifference of those

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involved. And of course, the brilliance
in which the whole thing is set up, so

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the implication is everything.

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And that indifference is perhaps the
most unsettling aspect of things,

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because movies tend to monsterize
characters.

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villainous characters I should say,
giving them a sadistic glee or a

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psychotic madness when they torture and
kill.

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Movies like to show villains as being
utterly villainous and taking great

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pleasure in what they do.

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But here it's completely dispassionate
and I think that makes it all the more

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disturbing because you can see how
dehumanised the whole situation is.

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There's no sense of being able to reason
with this nameless character, who is our

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central figure, or indeed with anyone
else here, because they're not even

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seeing their victims as human.

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You know, he might as well be stamping a
clerical form at stabbing somebody in

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the hand.

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And I think it's this complete lack of
humanity and empathy that has turned

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some people off from this movie.

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Even if they don't necessarily register
it, I think there's a subconscious

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revulsion that some people will have to
a film like this because it doesn't

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present its violence in a comfortable or
exciting way.

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In the way that we're used to seeing
violence presented in the film, where

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it's all very dramatic and, you know, it
gets the adrenaline pumping.

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I mean the action scenes here are
certainly dramatic and everything is

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beautifully shot but there's no sense of
the film trying to make the violence

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thrilling or cathartic or enjoyable.

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Movies generally avoid the ugliness and
the immediacy of violent death by either

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making characters into say cannon fodder
like armies of henchmen or

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enemy soldiers that we see mown down by
the hero in most action films.

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Or else they drag it out and make it
very emotionally involving.

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They make it painful, they make it
tragic.

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Which actually takes away from the
nihilism rather than adding to it.

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There is, of course, a long history of
movies that have made audiences very

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uncomfortable because they present
violence in a way that isn't remotely

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entertaining.

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A lot of those movies have, of course,
been censorship hot potatoes over the

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years precisely because they haven't
sugar-coated the horror, which I think

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is quite interesting when you think
about it because you would expect movie

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censors to be far more concerned by
films that glamorize violence or

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trivialize death.

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But if you look at some controversial
movies like the Cannibal Holocaust,

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Maniac, I Spit on Your Grave, several
others.

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You can see that they were, quite often
still are in many cases, criticised by

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audiences because they're too
mean-spirited and depressing.

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You know, these are horror films, but
they're not supposed to be dark.

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They're too real, I guess.

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I mean, I do get it, because obviously
most people watch films, even violent

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horror films, as escapism.

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Even the genre cinema that's too much
for the mainstream, like, say, Saw or

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Hostel, they still work within the
boundaries of an entertaining

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horror film, I suppose.

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So if a film doesn't give you that
rollercoaster ride or it becomes too

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real, then audiences tend to reject
them.

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And I can fully sympathize with that. I
remember being genuinely upset by both I

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Spit on Your Grave and Cannibal
Holocaust when I saw them in my early

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teens during the pre-Video Nasty era.

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And that was precisely because they were
not like any horror films that I'd ever

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seen before, even within that whole
Video Nasty, uncensored video realm,

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because they offered.

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No sense of escapism, but rather,
instead, just bludgeoned you with this

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horrible, authentic, relentless realism.

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Even though you knew the films were
works of fiction, there was something

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genuine about them that would speak to
you on a very visceral, emotional level.

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You were seeing violence in a completely
unvarnished way.

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And I think that this film does that as
well, so I certainly understand why

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there are some people who were genuinely
appalled by it. You know, especially if

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they came across it on the festival
circuit where you probably don't know

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all that much about what you're going to
see beyond maybe an organizer synopsis

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in the brochure or online.

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And that can never really set you up for
a film like this.

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You can reduce Steppenwolf to its basic
plot narrative. You could even tell

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people that it's an entirely bleak
experience.

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But everybody reading that will just
probably be saying, yeah, yeah,

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whatever, I can take it.

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But obviously no one's going to say that
the film they programmed in their

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festival is a complete downer. And I'm
not saying that this film is a complete

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downer, by the way. Not at all.

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But I can see how this would not speak
to some people who might be in the

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middle of a few days of horror films and
may well have come to this straight from

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something much lighter.

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Let me give you an example.

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I mean, I know this because I first came
across Steppenwolf at the Mayhem Film

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Festival in Nottingham in October 2024.

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And this was the Saturday afternoon
movie following the last video store.

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And the last video store is a very
entertaining horror comedy awash with

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1980s VHS era nostalgia and action and
fun.

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It's the very definition of fluffy
lightweight retro horror.

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So it's completely removed from the vibe
of this movie.

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And I do like it when festivals mix it
up and Mayhem in particular has always

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been very good at that going from the
grim to the lightweight and back again.

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But certainly I wasn't sure what this
would be in terms of tone or style.

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Would it be entertaining?

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Would it be very slow?

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Would it be fast paced?

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Obviously there were references

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And the critiques to movies like Mad Max
will come back to that in a little bit.

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But, you know, you just don't know what
you're going to expect from a film like

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this. And I know that it definitely
split the audience.

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Some people loved it. Some people
absolutely hated it. And quite a few

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people that I spoke to afterwards seemed
genuinely baffled by it.

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Not so much that they...

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they didn't like it they just couldn't
relate to it in any way shape or form

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and you know what that's that's fine
that's totally fair enough not

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everything is going to be for everyone
um god knows you know the mayhem chaps

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could tell you how many movies i've
walked out of at that event over the

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years and i know that will horrify some
film purists and I kind of agree walking

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00:17:59,510 --> 00:18:03,950
out of a film generally is quite a bad
thing but when you've got something like

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16 movies to watch in four days if
something isn't working for me I'd

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rather skip it and go and get some food
or something because you know you've got

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a lot of stuff to get through but if we
get back to this movie

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one of the criticisms that I've seen of
the film

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certainly from a couple of people
online, is that it is a misogynistic

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film.

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Which I have to say, I think is
completely wide of the mark.

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I understand it, but I think it's wrong.

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I think some people really struggle to
divorce a movie from its narrative, its

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makers from its characters.

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Now certainly the men in this film are

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very misogynistic.

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Or at least, they treat women as
horribly as they treat each other.

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I mean, that's arguably more
misanthropic than misogynistic.

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00:19:06,920 --> 00:19:10,880
You know, I would be a lot more
sympathetic to claims that the film

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00:19:10,880 --> 00:19:13,300
itself had a very misanthropic view of
the world.

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00:19:14,420 --> 00:19:15,600
But misogyny?

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I'm not sure.

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00:19:19,820 --> 00:19:24,000
I think that we're perhaps unused to
seeing women treated in the way that

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Tamara is here, or perhaps being so
submissive in her acceptance of this

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treatment. And that may be why it's just
so shocking to some people. This isn't

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something that you will find in a modern
Hollywood movie.

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I don't know that that's because she's a
woman, though, because, as you all know,

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you will have watched this film already.

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There's a distinct lack of sexual
motivation throughout the entire

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00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:58,400
narrative. It's not as if she's being
trafficked or sexually abused.

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00:19:59,340 --> 00:20:04,300
In fact, most of the characters seem
entirely disinterested in the fact that

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she's female.

253
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I think that her victimization comes
about because she is so obviously

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00:20:11,100 --> 00:20:12,100
vulnerable.

255
00:20:12,680 --> 00:20:17,740
whether she had learning disabilities,
whether she experienced some sort of

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00:20:17,740 --> 00:20:22,680
devastating trauma, or perhaps more
likely both of these things have

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00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:24,760
combined to make her the way she is.

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And I think in a sense that's probably
even more shocking for audiences because

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seeing vulnerable people taken advantage
of or abused is definitely something

260
00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:38,540
that makes most normal people feel
inherently uncomfortable.

261
00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:40,680
I mean certainly

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For me, watching this film for the first
time, it was, yeah, uncomfortable.

263
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I think that's, you know, the way to
describe it.

264
00:20:51,080 --> 00:20:55,640
But again, I don't think that's
necessarily because she's a woman. I

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00:20:55,640 --> 00:20:59,740
certainly didn't take it when watching
the film originally that she was being

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00:20:59,740 --> 00:21:01,240
victimized because she was a woman.

267
00:21:01,540 --> 00:21:04,240
Maybe she's being victimized because
she's weaker.

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00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:10,200
But then, you know, weaker men are
potentially victimized in this film too.

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I think when you see the treatment that
our main character, our man with no

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00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:21,520
name, dishes out to everyone, men,
women, and children, then, you know, you

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00:21:21,520 --> 00:21:24,760
can see that he's an equal opportunity
nihilist.

272
00:21:26,140 --> 00:21:30,500
The only person that he's remotely
interested in, really, is himself and

273
00:21:30,500 --> 00:21:33,460
everybody else. He's barely even human
to him.

274
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But here's the thing. I mean, the film
doesn't condone this behavior.

275
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It's not as if the movie is trying to
make us admire him.

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I do think that a lot of people tend to
struggle with the idea that a central

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00:21:49,260 --> 00:21:54,900
character might not be a hero or even
what we would call an anti-hero.

278
00:21:56,820 --> 00:22:02,460
An interesting term that I've never
quite got my head around.

279
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:06,340
That still suggests somebody who is
admirable in some way.

280
00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:11,260
I know that movies tend to give us
somebody who we are supposed to

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00:22:11,260 --> 00:22:14,800
empathise with as the central character,
as the main character.

282
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:19,580
And maybe that's Tamara here, but it's
not this guy.

283
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:26,940
He's clearly selfish, untrustworthy,
psychotic and somewhat unhinged.

284
00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:32,220
And I don't think the film is remotely
trying to humanise him at any point.

285
00:22:32,480 --> 00:22:34,420
Not even when we find out what...

286
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:37,700
his real motivation for helping Tamara
is.

287
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:43,540
You know, that just comes over as
another sign of how he uses people and

288
00:22:43,540 --> 00:22:46,780
is then prepared to throw them away when
they're no further use.

289
00:22:47,660 --> 00:22:52,380
I mean, you clearly can't trust him.
He's going to stab you or shoot you in

290
00:22:52,380 --> 00:22:55,600
the back if it's in his interests, as
we've seen.

291
00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:59,080
And as we'll see in a moment here.

292
00:23:04,810 --> 00:23:10,590
So this idea that the film and the
filmmakers are somehow sympathetic to

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00:23:10,590 --> 00:23:16,850
him, that he's supposed to be somebody
that the viewer relates to, admires,

294
00:23:16,850 --> 00:23:23,650
likes, whatever that might be, that just
feels like a very misguided

295
00:23:23,650 --> 00:23:25,810
interpretation of the film.

296
00:23:28,940 --> 00:23:33,260
And I do think potentially it's a very
deliberate misinterpretation of the

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00:23:33,260 --> 00:23:40,240
film. I think that we're at a point of
time where some people figure that

298
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:45,460
they can get social media clout by
finding something offensive in a movie

299
00:23:45,460 --> 00:23:48,740
and then being the first person to point
that out.

300
00:23:49,980 --> 00:23:53,440
That might just be the cynic in me, but
I have seen this kind of thing

301
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,080
happening. I'm sure you have too.

302
00:23:56,520 --> 00:24:00,020
And, you know, I'm not saying that the
people who instinctively dislike the

303
00:24:00,020 --> 00:24:01,120
movie are wrong.

304
00:24:02,120 --> 00:24:07,420
That's obviously a matter of personal
taste, and we don't all like the same

305
00:24:07,420 --> 00:24:09,260
things, quite clearly.

306
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:16,040
But, you know, I do think that there is
this tendency in some circles to not

307
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:22,460
simply dislike a movie, but then to
ascribe a philosophy to it that simply

308
00:24:22,460 --> 00:24:25,780
isn't there. So, as I said, like a
willful misrepresentation.

309
00:24:28,620 --> 00:24:33,720
to have to have a reason why you don't
like a film rather than it just not

310
00:24:33,720 --> 00:24:34,720
speaking to you.

311
00:24:35,460 --> 00:24:36,880
And that feels very odd.

312
00:24:39,500 --> 00:24:44,440
I mean, if we were to say that every
film is in sympathy with the worst

313
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:48,120
aspects of its worst characters, where
would that leave us?

314
00:24:48,420 --> 00:24:53,420
I mean, a film that's about racists,
racist, is a film about rape,

315
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:54,480
celebrating rape.

316
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:59,680
Well, I know that some people do like to
make that argument, but it's obviously

317
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:00,680
nonsense.

318
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:08,380
Drama often centers around conflict and
often features awful people with

319
00:25:08,380 --> 00:25:09,380
dreadful opinions.

320
00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:15,040
I think the best films can also
acknowledge that these monstrous people

321
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:21,120
can also be charming, personable, even
fun, rather than making them into

322
00:25:21,120 --> 00:25:22,680
completely one-dimensional.

323
00:25:24,330 --> 00:25:28,130
But that still doesn't mean that they
admire the character or that we're

324
00:25:28,130 --> 00:25:33,890
supposed to like them. I think the film
can show how manipulative they are and

325
00:25:33,890 --> 00:25:36,950
it can show us why people will be
attracted to those people.

326
00:25:38,650 --> 00:25:45,650
I mean, I doubt that even the worst
monsters in society see

327
00:25:45,650 --> 00:25:47,810
themselves as evil.

328
00:25:49,070 --> 00:25:52,970
You know, I know we used to see these
single-minded killers and morally

329
00:25:52,970 --> 00:25:54,210
irredeemable characters.

330
00:25:54,430 --> 00:25:59,830
But, you know, in real life, it's a lot
more nuanced. And everybody believes

331
00:25:59,830 --> 00:26:03,570
that they're on the side of the angels.
And what they do is justified, whether

332
00:26:03,570 --> 00:26:08,810
it's for their own needs, for the needs
of their family, the needs of their

333
00:26:08,810 --> 00:26:11,370
nation, the needs of whoever.

334
00:26:12,510 --> 00:26:17,390
You know, we can convince ourselves that
anything is justified if it's for the

335
00:26:17,390 --> 00:26:18,390
greater good.

336
00:26:20,940 --> 00:26:25,660
You know, I think the nuance is being a
bit lost as audiences demand everything

337
00:26:25,660 --> 00:26:30,580
as black and white, good and evil, right
and wrong, and worry that allowing

338
00:26:30,580 --> 00:26:35,260
somebody, no matter what the character
is, to express a hateful opinion is

339
00:26:35,260 --> 00:26:39,040
dangerous, lest it influences other
people.

340
00:26:39,360 --> 00:26:43,360
And like all good censors, they always
think that it will be the other people

341
00:26:43,360 --> 00:26:44,860
affected, not them.

342
00:26:46,330 --> 00:26:50,610
But I can't see anybody watching this
film and thinking that this is someone

343
00:26:50,610 --> 00:26:51,610
to look up to.

344
00:26:51,950 --> 00:26:56,550
Not unless they're as completely
psychopathic as he is, in which case,

345
00:26:56,550 --> 00:26:58,610
you know, he's probably already too late
for them.

346
00:27:01,150 --> 00:27:07,090
I am always fascinated by the whole kind
of monkey-see, monkey-do attitude that

347
00:27:07,090 --> 00:27:11,270
drives censors, and those who are their
fellow travellers.

348
00:27:11,770 --> 00:27:16,230
which tends to include a lot of film
critics, social media commentators, and

349
00:27:16,230 --> 00:27:18,790
everybody else eagerly looking to be
offended.

350
00:27:20,590 --> 00:27:26,170
I fully understand the dangers of fake
news, propaganda, and blowhards egging

351
00:27:26,170 --> 00:27:30,610
on the mob, but works of narrative
fiction are a very different kettle of

352
00:27:30,610 --> 00:27:35,730
fish. I mean, yeah, some are clearly,
obviously, propaganda.

353
00:27:36,650 --> 00:27:39,910
But movies like this, you know, they're
telling a story. They're telling a story

354
00:27:39,910 --> 00:27:44,250
about people that you would never want
to meet in a place that you would never

355
00:27:44,250 --> 00:27:45,250
want to be.

356
00:27:46,050 --> 00:27:51,690
The idea that Steppenwolf is some kind
of lifestyle guide that people will look

357
00:27:51,690 --> 00:27:58,630
at and then want to copy, it seems
hilarious to me. I mean, what is there

358
00:27:58,630 --> 00:28:01,610
here that anyone would possibly aspire
to?

359
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:09,660
Of course, I do understand that the film
might well trigger people who have

360
00:28:09,660 --> 00:28:16,040
experienced domestic violence or
bullying or

361
00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:21,080
any kind of violence. And I'm certainly
not belittling that in any way, shape or

362
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:22,080
form.

363
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:26,800
I'm not sure where I really stand on
trigger warnings because I think they

364
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:33,800
often act, partly as a spoiler, but more
significantly, they reduce a

365
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:38,400
movie. that might have a very complex
narrative to a series of moments and

366
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:39,400
events.

367
00:28:39,580 --> 00:28:44,240
But I do understand that, you know, that
may be helpful for some people in order

368
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:46,120
for them to avoid seeing something
upsetting.

369
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,840
Though, you know, I do wonder if having
that content spelled out so bluntly out

370
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:55,380
of context isn't itself a potentially
triggering moment for the time.

371
00:28:58,540 --> 00:29:03,140
And... Yeah, I'll be honest, you know, I
don't subscribe to the idea of film

372
00:29:03,140 --> 00:29:04,480
being harmful.

373
00:29:05,460 --> 00:29:09,880
That's the justification that censors of
all types use, and it makes me

374
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,300
immediately, automatically very
suspicious.

375
00:29:13,100 --> 00:29:19,380
I think films can be upsetting,
disturbing, offensive, challenging,

376
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:25,860
but I can't believe they cause actual
harm, not in a serious,

377
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:28,680
lasting, meaningful way.

378
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:33,520
I mean, there are things that I've seen
in films and documentaries that have

379
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:37,020
stayed with me far longer than I would
have wanted them to.

380
00:29:37,940 --> 00:29:41,320
Thinking of the documentary The Bridge,
for instance, the final shot of the guy

381
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:43,180
throwing himself off.

382
00:29:44,180 --> 00:29:47,300
That's something that lingered in my
head for a very long time afterwards.

383
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,900
You know, these are images that you can
never unsee and moments that you might

384
00:29:51,900 --> 00:29:53,460
have avoided in retrospect.

385
00:29:54,420 --> 00:29:55,860
But I mean, have they harmed me?

386
00:29:56,420 --> 00:29:57,900
You know, I don't think so.

387
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:03,360
And the problem is that we never know
what will trigger a negative reaction.

388
00:30:04,460 --> 00:30:09,120
I mean, we could guess, but the oddest
things might have an unexpected effect

389
00:30:09,120 --> 00:30:10,120
on people.

390
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:15,180
When I was a little kid, I had a
vomit-inducing nightmare about Oompa

391
00:30:15,180 --> 00:30:18,420
Loompas after seeing Willy Wonka and the
Chocolate Factory in the cinema.

392
00:30:18,940 --> 00:30:23,400
And I don't think that anyone saw that
coming, not even me. I didn't find those

393
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,040
characters at all frightening when I
actually watched the movie.

394
00:30:28,270 --> 00:30:33,350
Clearly, I'm not trying to trivialise
ideas or triggering images, and I'm not

395
00:30:33,350 --> 00:30:40,130
dismissing how problematic that can be
for some viewers. This is just my

396
00:30:40,130 --> 00:30:41,850
opinion and my experience.

397
00:30:42,330 --> 00:30:46,970
But I do think we need to see everything
in context, particularly if it's a work

398
00:30:46,970 --> 00:30:47,709
of fiction.

399
00:30:47,710 --> 00:30:52,770
So the narrative context of the film,
and not simply reduce a movie to being a

400
00:30:52,770 --> 00:30:56,450
manifesto of the worst characters'
ideas, or...

401
00:30:56,730 --> 00:30:58,490
a list of upsetting moments.

402
00:31:02,930 --> 00:31:08,130
Incidentally this is arguably the only
point of the film where Tamara is

403
00:31:08,130 --> 00:31:15,070
sexualized in any way shape or form and
it is a a

404
00:31:15,070 --> 00:31:17,930
very subtle moment that doesn't really
go anywhere.

405
00:31:20,330 --> 00:31:26,170
But yeah I mean there is one point of
the film where she is treated

406
00:31:26,170 --> 00:31:28,450
differently because she's female.

407
00:31:28,710 --> 00:31:30,690
So, fair enough.

408
00:31:33,690 --> 00:31:39,150
But I think a lot of the film's problem
for some people, for some viewers, is

409
00:31:39,150 --> 00:31:44,610
the way that Tamara is shown as such a
passive victim.

410
00:31:45,830 --> 00:31:50,390
Now, this isn't a portrayal of women
that we tend to see in modern Western

411
00:31:50,390 --> 00:31:54,190
movies. Movies made in the West, I mean,
not Westerns.

412
00:31:54,700 --> 00:31:58,300
I kind of need to say that given the
film's connection to that genre.

413
00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:05,540
The way she behaves, her constant
talking to herself,

414
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:12,620
her inability to say no to people or to
assert herself, and the fact that she's

415
00:32:12,620 --> 00:32:14,900
further victimized because of that
behavior.

416
00:32:16,820 --> 00:32:20,300
You know, her mumble dialogue is
definitely challenging for some people.

417
00:32:21,100 --> 00:32:26,620
Either they find her very annoying or
they are completely infuriated by the

418
00:32:26,620 --> 00:32:28,180
way she doesn't stand up for herself.

419
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:33,800
But I think that this is a remarkable
performance by Anna Starchenko.

420
00:32:34,180 --> 00:32:40,120
Brilliant and nuanced and far more
complex than a lot of people have given

421
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:41,120
her credit for.

422
00:32:42,300 --> 00:32:46,860
You know, it's really, really hard to
convincingly portray somebody who is so

423
00:32:46,860 --> 00:32:47,940
completely damaged.

424
00:32:48,650 --> 00:32:52,810
At least I assume it is, I'm not an
actor, but given how few people have

425
00:32:52,810 --> 00:32:58,070
managed to do it well, then I think it
must be quite a difficult acting job.

426
00:32:58,830 --> 00:33:03,130
There seems to be a tendency to over-egg
the pudding by a lot of actors who are

427
00:33:03,130 --> 00:33:08,470
playing somebody traumatised or damaged,
and Achenko does quite the opposite

428
00:33:08,470 --> 00:33:11,970
here. Everything is very quiet, but
fixated.

429
00:33:12,740 --> 00:33:18,200
with her broken persona struggling with
a situation that is clearly beyond her

430
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:19,520
ability to cope with.

431
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:24,900
You know, she has no kind of
self-preservation instinct whatsoever.

432
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:32,460
But I don't think that the film would
have benefited from a portrayal of her

433
00:33:32,460 --> 00:33:34,460
as a strong, powerful woman.

434
00:33:35,220 --> 00:33:39,580
She needs to be this way so that the
viewers can connect with her, can

435
00:33:39,580 --> 00:33:40,620
connect with her plight.

436
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,520
You know, I think she's our
representative here, not this

437
00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:45,520
psychopath.

438
00:33:48,020 --> 00:33:50,700
She's the person that we are supposed to
empathize with.

439
00:33:53,500 --> 00:33:56,840
And, you know, she's confused. She's
shell-shocked. She's beaten up by a

440
00:33:56,840 --> 00:33:58,100
world that's gone to hell.

441
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:05,060
It's significant that, as with
everything else in this movie, we're not

442
00:34:05,060 --> 00:34:07,400
told exactly what is going on with her.

443
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:10,159
What is it that makes her the way she
is?

444
00:34:10,810 --> 00:34:14,130
You know, I suspect that a lot of
Hollywood movies would feel the need to

445
00:34:14,130 --> 00:34:19,750
spell it out, explain things so that we
can relate to whatever has happened and

446
00:34:19,750 --> 00:34:26,469
understand why she is the way she is.
But we don't really need a backstory in

447
00:34:26,469 --> 00:34:27,929
this film, not for anyone.

448
00:34:28,989 --> 00:34:33,409
I mean, obviously, our policeman, I was
going to say hero.

449
00:34:33,750 --> 00:34:37,350
Yeah, I'm not quite sure how we'll
describe him. Let's just say the

450
00:34:37,350 --> 00:34:38,350
policeman.

451
00:34:38,540 --> 00:34:44,159
You know, he'd get a bit of a backstory,
you know, a very small degree, and it's

452
00:34:44,159 --> 00:34:45,159
the bare minimum.

453
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:52,639
I mean, the film itself is very
ambiguous about what exactly has

454
00:34:52,639 --> 00:34:56,139
happened. How has society reached this
point?

455
00:34:57,100 --> 00:35:03,880
It's been called post-apocalyptic, and
it certainly is that, though maybe it's

456
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,520
kind of more kind of currently
apocalyptic.

457
00:35:07,190 --> 00:35:08,470
It might be a better description.

458
00:35:08,930 --> 00:35:11,250
You know, there's no time set for the
film.

459
00:35:12,810 --> 00:35:16,230
Is this the future, the present, or
what?

460
00:35:17,090 --> 00:35:21,110
And equally, it's never spelled out
exactly where this is taking place.

461
00:35:21,330 --> 00:35:28,210
I mean, obviously we can say Kazakhstan
because of building, signage, text, etc.

462
00:35:28,410 --> 00:35:31,430
But, you know, that's because the film
was made in Kazakhstan.

463
00:35:32,570 --> 00:35:35,730
But maybe it's not. I mean, it could be
anywhere.

464
00:35:36,430 --> 00:35:37,430
any time.

465
00:35:38,030 --> 00:35:42,870
I mean, clearly it's a world where law
and order has collapsed, but equally

466
00:35:42,870 --> 00:35:49,150
it's still functioning in a lot of ways.
There's electricity, there's radio and

467
00:35:49,150 --> 00:35:53,810
TV broadcasts, there are working
security cameras, and still some sort of

468
00:35:53,810 --> 00:35:57,630
government, clearly, that's at war with
a terrorist group.

469
00:35:58,250 --> 00:36:02,530
So this isn't some kind of
hyper-futuristic cursed earth scenario.

470
00:36:04,010 --> 00:36:08,470
It feels a lot more like a country at
war, or maybe civil war.

471
00:36:08,970 --> 00:36:15,870
That sense of social collapse that we're
in the center of, that we're kind

472
00:36:15,870 --> 00:36:19,970
of maybe weeks from the normality of the
past.

473
00:36:21,850 --> 00:36:27,390
You know, on all the kind of the tribal
infighting, the grasping for power, the

474
00:36:27,390 --> 00:36:31,750
settling of scores, somewhere that's
evolving out of civilization.

475
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:37,400
which is the kind of thing that we see
in a lot of real-life war zones,

476
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:39,320
especially civil war zones.

477
00:36:40,100 --> 00:36:45,600
You can look at this film and you can
see images of Bosnia, Somalia, Syria,

478
00:36:45,780 --> 00:36:51,260
and countless other countries that were
and are torn apart by a power struggle

479
00:36:51,260 --> 00:36:56,020
between the established government and
the terrorists, the insurgents, the

480
00:36:56,020 --> 00:36:57,020
freedom fighters.

481
00:36:57,860 --> 00:37:01,320
Call them what you will, depending on
where your sympathies lie, I suppose.

482
00:37:03,310 --> 00:37:06,930
And obviously where there's a power
vacuum, people will take advantage,

483
00:37:07,250 --> 00:37:09,350
seizing control of small areas.

484
00:37:09,870 --> 00:37:14,850
We can see this with characters like
Max, petty little thugs who gain a bit

485
00:37:14,850 --> 00:37:20,370
of power, and Taha, who is a step above,
but still you suspect somebody who will

486
00:37:20,370 --> 00:37:23,290
be pretty small time in normal
circumstances.

487
00:37:25,130 --> 00:37:29,990
It's all rather pathetic, a bit like
postcode gangs who defend their turf

488
00:37:29,990 --> 00:37:33,260
against... the handful of people who
live less than a mile away.

489
00:37:34,500 --> 00:37:38,800
Being a big fish in a small pond is
something that's very attractive to a

490
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:43,780
lot of people even though they often end
up getting swallowed by much bigger fish

491
00:37:43,780 --> 00:37:44,780
in the end.

492
00:37:48,140 --> 00:37:53,060
Now what this movie reminds me of in a
lot of ways is the first Mad Max movie.

493
00:37:53,780 --> 00:37:58,840
We tend to think of Mad Max in terms of
the world that the second movie set up

494
00:37:58,840 --> 00:37:59,840
which

495
00:38:00,090 --> 00:38:04,610
Then would act as the prototype for
countless other films, mostly Italian

496
00:38:04,610 --> 00:38:10,810
movies like The New Barbarians, Bronx
Warriors, 2020 Texas Gladiators,

497
00:38:11,070 --> 00:38:17,930
Endgame, 2019, several others. That
whole kind of punk

498
00:38:17,930 --> 00:38:24,870
rock, BDSM inspired look, the futuristic
wasteland, the pumped up cars and

499
00:38:24,870 --> 00:38:28,810
bikes, the general futuristic
post-apocalypse vibe of the things.

500
00:38:30,550 --> 00:38:36,350
but I think because of the impact and
just the sheer quantity of those movies

501
00:38:36,350 --> 00:38:41,430
we do tend to quite often forget that
the first Mad Max took place in a much

502
00:38:41,430 --> 00:38:46,230
more recognizable world one that was
perhaps on the verge of collapse or the

503
00:38:46,230 --> 00:38:52,430
midst of collapse maybe a world that's
again a few weeks before this takes

504
00:38:52,430 --> 00:38:53,430
place

505
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,980
but still something we could relate to.
It didn't feel as if it was taking place

506
00:38:57,980 --> 00:39:00,780
in some far-off distant future.

507
00:39:01,860 --> 00:39:07,080
That film is very much about how
everything begins to fall apart, how

508
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:12,540
assorted crises, in the case of Mad Max
that's an oil shortage, looming

509
00:39:12,540 --> 00:39:18,080
environmental catastrophe, these things
can push civilization to the edge.

510
00:39:18,380 --> 00:39:22,900
That it doesn't take a lot to send us
from where we are now

511
00:39:23,950 --> 00:39:25,110
to where we'd be then.

512
00:39:26,550 --> 00:39:32,270
So in that sense, it's probably a film
that's more dystopian than post

513
00:39:32,270 --> 00:39:33,270
-apocalyptic.

514
00:39:33,690 --> 00:39:36,810
That's an area that the sequels would
increasingly head in.

515
00:39:37,790 --> 00:39:41,010
And you know, I'd say the same thing
about this film.

516
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:47,480
Dystopia doesn't have to be futuristic,
even though it usually is in movies

517
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:51,960
where a narrative has to be established
of things to come to explain the

518
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:53,980
alternative reality that we're seeing.

519
00:39:54,500 --> 00:39:59,220
God knows we've seen enough countless
dystopian nightmares taking place in the

520
00:39:59,220 --> 00:40:03,020
real world, several of which are still
ongoing right now.

521
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:09,160
Obviously, I mentioned earlier that it's
hard to watch this film

522
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:13,980
Right now, I'm recording this at the
start of January 2025.

523
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:18,680
You know, you can't watch it without
thinking of the war in Ukraine.

524
00:40:19,540 --> 00:40:23,780
Kazakhstan is, like Russia and Ukraine,
a former part of the USSR.

525
00:40:24,540 --> 00:40:30,020
And so it's easy to relate the imagery
here to the pictures we're seeing on the

526
00:40:30,020 --> 00:40:35,940
news and the stories we hear of lawless
soldiers and war crimes and crumbling

527
00:40:35,940 --> 00:40:36,940
social structures.

528
00:40:38,700 --> 00:40:43,540
I think that that war has also made
everybody around the world a lot edgier

529
00:40:43,540 --> 00:40:48,460
about the possibility of global conflict
and the unthinkable nuclear war.

530
00:40:49,020 --> 00:40:55,600
We've seen people, politicians, talking
heads, military people, openly

531
00:40:55,600 --> 00:41:01,580
discussing the idea of tactical nuclear
strikes and the options for what they

532
00:41:01,580 --> 00:41:05,520
seem to think is a non-apocalyptic
nuclear war, as if such a thing could

533
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:07,320
ever be contained once it began.

534
00:41:08,570 --> 00:41:14,750
that radiation would somehow simply blow
away on the breeze you know we only have

535
00:41:14,750 --> 00:41:19,510
to look at how many people in the world
of politics the media and beyond seem

536
00:41:19,510 --> 00:41:26,510
almost desperate for an escalation to
see how things could go very bad you

537
00:41:26,510 --> 00:41:30,090
know then we've got all the other
conflicts and revolutions around the

538
00:41:30,090 --> 00:41:35,490
world with rogue states and power grabs
hype scoring

539
00:41:37,340 --> 00:41:42,020
grudge settling, the rise of political
extremism and division.

540
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:47,420
I'm not taking any political stance on
any of the conflicts going on right now,

541
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:50,760
other than to firmly hope that by the
time you sit down to listen to this,

542
00:41:50,860 --> 00:41:53,000
they've all come peacefully to an end.

543
00:41:53,240 --> 00:41:58,700
But you can see how the world is a lot
more focused on the idea that everything

544
00:41:58,700 --> 00:41:59,900
is going to hell.

545
00:42:00,900 --> 00:42:05,480
And that's not even getting into climate
catastrophe, which used to be the thing

546
00:42:05,480 --> 00:42:06,480
of science fiction.

547
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:11,260
And I mean literally the narrative of a
bunch of movies like No Blade of Grass

548
00:42:11,260 --> 00:42:12,820
and The Day the Earth Caught Fire.

549
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:18,580
But of course it's something very real
that most people, apart from the

550
00:42:18,580 --> 00:42:25,300
wackiest cranks, have now come to accept
as a genuine and imminent threat that we

551
00:42:25,300 --> 00:42:28,480
have to get to grips with if it's not
already too late.

552
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:34,700
I do think it's actually quite
interesting how we tend to...

553
00:42:35,190 --> 00:42:40,250
I almost always think of post-apocalypse
cinema, TV and literature as being post

554
00:42:40,250 --> 00:42:45,170
-bomb. The idea that the remnants of
civilization battling it out for

555
00:42:45,170 --> 00:42:47,170
survival in a radiated wasteland.

556
00:42:47,750 --> 00:42:50,790
And obviously there's a lot of that
stuff out there.

557
00:42:51,430 --> 00:42:54,250
Pretty much all of the Italian films
mentioned earlier.

558
00:42:54,470 --> 00:42:59,230
Things like A Boy and His Dog,
Deathsport, Sardar's, Logan's Run,

559
00:42:59,470 --> 00:43:01,070
Planet of the Apes films.

560
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:08,540
And a whole load of 50s sci-fi, like
Five, The Day the World Ended, into the

561
00:43:08,540 --> 00:43:10,340
60s with things like Panic in Year Zero.

562
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:16,120
But actually, the world of
post-apocalyptic cinema is a great deal

563
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:19,660
more varied than that, and a lot more
interesting.

564
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:25,380
I think a lot of the films made in the
1960s, 70s, even the 80s, feel

565
00:43:25,380 --> 00:43:27,120
surprisingly prescient now.

566
00:43:27,980 --> 00:43:32,850
I mean, like I said a few minutes ago,
movies like no blade of grass positive

567
00:43:32,850 --> 00:43:37,070
future where environmental catastrophe
has decimated the earth and we've got

568
00:43:37,070 --> 00:43:41,690
movies like silent green and zero
population growth that are predicting

569
00:43:41,690 --> 00:43:47,170
the horrors of population explosion of
food shortage too many people not enough

570
00:43:47,170 --> 00:43:51,770
resources obviously we're all now a lot
more aware

571
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:58,260
or the dangers that are shown in movies
like The Ultimate Warrior and Virus, TV

572
00:43:58,260 --> 00:44:02,780
shows like Survivors or books like
Stephen King's The Stand where the world

573
00:44:02,780 --> 00:44:04,720
is decimated by a rampant pandemic.

574
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:09,600
You know, this stuff is a lot less
far-fetched than we might once have

575
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:10,600
thought.

576
00:44:11,020 --> 00:44:15,700
Even the zombie movies of George Romero
like Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of

577
00:44:15,700 --> 00:44:20,320
the Dead, not to mention his very
underrated movie The Crazies and some of

578
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:22,320
David Cronenberg's early films like
Rabid.

579
00:44:22,830 --> 00:44:26,510
you know essentially deal with the idea
of an infection that is out of control

580
00:44:26,510 --> 00:44:33,050
so movies about disease be it natural
man-made or even alien you

581
00:44:33,050 --> 00:44:37,130
know they tend to be amongst the most
unnerving because this is an apocalypse

582
00:44:37,130 --> 00:44:42,590
that we can all relate to the nuclear
war is still an unimaginable horror and

583
00:44:42,590 --> 00:44:47,690
hopefully we'll remain that way but the
idea that a new infection can emerge and

584
00:44:47,690 --> 00:44:54,210
spread rapidly unstoppably across the
world We all know that it can happen.

585
00:44:55,450 --> 00:45:00,750
We probably got off very lightly with
COVID-19, but we know that when the next

586
00:45:00,750 --> 00:45:07,290
pandemic happens, and it is a matter of
when and not if, then things could be a

587
00:45:07,290 --> 00:45:08,290
lot worse.

588
00:45:08,950 --> 00:45:12,330
Had we learned anything from the COVID
days, it's that society will very

589
00:45:12,330 --> 00:45:16,170
quickly splitter and lunatic ideas will
spread like wildfire.

590
00:45:16,610 --> 00:45:20,980
The idea of us all coming together for
the greater good was clearly a pipe

591
00:45:20,980 --> 00:45:27,180
dream and so the apocalyptic world that
we see in a lot of these movies now just

592
00:45:27,180 --> 00:45:31,500
feel like yeah that's how it would all
end up if things were worse than covid

593
00:45:31,500 --> 00:45:38,180
I think it's our knowledge of human
nature and the assorted

594
00:45:38,180 --> 00:45:42,740
perils that we now face and which could
literally hit us out of the blue are the

595
00:45:42,740 --> 00:45:48,140
things that make the various
post-apocalyptic stories so unnerving I

596
00:45:48,140 --> 00:45:51,560
think it's almost certainly why the
zombie movie became the predominant

597
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:55,580
horror genre, overtaking the classic
monsters of the Universal and Hammer

598
00:45:55,580 --> 00:45:56,580
eras.

599
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:01,000
It's not just the idea that the zombies
are us, as Romero often said.

600
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:07,960
Even the idea of dead bodies walking,
coming back to life and eating the

601
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:12,160
living, it was more of a genuine threat
than a Transylvanian Count or a single

602
00:46:12,160 --> 00:46:13,160
Frankenstein monster.

603
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:20,380
If we look at some of the various
tabloid horror stories of recent years,

604
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:25,820
all the tales of assault zombies, people
on designer drugs who became crazed,

605
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:30,780
attacked and ate people on the street,
stories that were somewhat exaggerated

606
00:46:30,780 --> 00:46:36,340
as it turned out, but still have at home
the message that we have no idea what

607
00:46:36,340 --> 00:46:39,280
will suddenly infect people and turn
them into monsters.

608
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:44,180
It doesn't even need to be a chemical or
natural infection.

609
00:46:44,740 --> 00:46:50,180
We saw again and again in places like
Rwanda and Bosnia how easily people can

610
00:46:50,180 --> 00:46:54,820
be made to see that people who used to
be their friends and neighbours are

611
00:46:54,820 --> 00:46:59,400
suddenly subhuman and be willing to
murder and brutalise them once tribal

612
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:00,960
rivalries have been stirred up.

613
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:07,780
But I guess it's how all wars work to a
large extent because we do need to be

614
00:47:07,780 --> 00:47:13,910
convinced that killing other people is
noble and necessary for war to happen

615
00:47:13,910 --> 00:47:19,630
but it does seem especially monstrous in
civil wars especially between religious

616
00:47:19,630 --> 00:47:26,270
or tribal groups I think similarly
dystopian narratives work for us because

617
00:47:26,270 --> 00:47:32,950
we've seen enough real life examples
from Nazi Germany to Cambodia to

618
00:47:32,950 --> 00:47:34,390
know how possible it is

619
00:47:35,210 --> 00:47:39,790
Given how fractured our societies are
now with so many countries, so many

620
00:47:39,790 --> 00:47:45,390
communities, so many families split
politically to the degree where one side

621
00:47:45,390 --> 00:47:50,790
will literally dehumanize the other and
there can never be any level of coming

622
00:47:50,790 --> 00:47:57,310
together or understanding or tolerance,
we can all see how fragile democracy and

623
00:47:57,310 --> 00:48:00,990
free speech and individual liberty are.

624
00:48:02,170 --> 00:48:07,140
History tells us that These are ideas
that flourish and then fall time and

625
00:48:07,140 --> 00:48:08,140
time again.

626
00:48:09,100 --> 00:48:13,120
So there's certainly no reason to
believe that it couldn't happen again,

627
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:18,940
that it couldn't happen here, and that
it could quite easily happen

628
00:48:18,940 --> 00:48:21,180
almost every night.

629
00:48:24,520 --> 00:48:29,240
You know, certainly dystopian cinema
narratives have been very popular in

630
00:48:29,240 --> 00:48:33,140
recent years with things like The Hunger
Games and The Handmaid's Tale.

631
00:48:33,770 --> 00:48:39,930
all seem to reflect a current unease
about where we're going politically with

632
00:48:39,930 --> 00:48:46,870
the far right raising up populist
politics a lack of tolerance

633
00:48:46,870 --> 00:48:53,370
and the general othering of those we
disagree with

634
00:48:53,370 --> 00:49:00,110
I think obviously a lot of this stems
from Brexit in the

635
00:49:00,110 --> 00:49:03,670
UK, the election of Donald Trump in the
US.

636
00:49:04,210 --> 00:49:10,530
They seem to be both events that have
absolutely just made the

637
00:49:10,530 --> 00:49:16,630
cultural, social split between groups
one that, you know, it's a divide that

638
00:49:16,630 --> 00:49:23,570
can never be brought together again now,
it seems, which is sad,

639
00:49:24,610 --> 00:49:25,610
really.

640
00:49:29,320 --> 00:49:32,620
You know, I do think that it's entirely
understandable that people are then

641
00:49:32,620 --> 00:49:39,620
attracted to these dystopian stories
because it's that weird

642
00:49:39,620 --> 00:49:44,260
thing. I think some people watch them
because it's a frightening view of a

643
00:49:44,260 --> 00:49:49,740
potential future. Some people watch them
because, you know, they get some kind of

644
00:49:49,740 --> 00:49:55,700
smug satisfaction in saying, look, this
is what's going to happen. You know, I'm

645
00:49:55,700 --> 00:49:56,700
right, I know.

646
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:03,380
But equally, I think it's just something
that feeds into the general zeitgeist.

647
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:08,020
It's something that kind of sits in our
subconscious and then feeds out. A bit

648
00:50:08,020 --> 00:50:13,700
like, you know, how many films in the
late 60s and early 70s were kind of

649
00:50:13,700 --> 00:50:15,620
channeling the Vietnam War in America.

650
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:25,640
Movies, books, TV shows, you know, they
will reflect our cultural concerns,

651
00:50:25,740 --> 00:50:27,180
even if they don't do it.

652
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:29,160
openly, even if they don't do it
consciously.

653
00:50:33,580 --> 00:50:36,500
You know, I think it's all
understandable because, you know, we

654
00:50:36,500 --> 00:50:39,920
have the lessons from history, we have
people's fears about the current state

655
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:40,819
of the world.

656
00:50:40,820 --> 00:50:44,740
But I do think stories like this one,
Steppenwolf, which we're watching now,

657
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:49,560
where everything has just fallen apart
and everyone is in it for themselves,

658
00:50:49,880 --> 00:50:55,640
they're much more interesting than some
of the other dystopian, apocalyptic

659
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:56,640
narratives.

660
00:50:58,070 --> 00:51:03,230
Not the more fun, it has to be said,
because there's rarely the same sense of

661
00:51:03,230 --> 00:51:07,130
hope that we get in some of the other
films, the films that are about

662
00:51:07,130 --> 00:51:13,150
oppressive states where the grip on
power is often loosened or overthrown by

663
00:51:13,150 --> 00:51:18,090
the end, or at least where the central
characters get to escape to a sense of

664
00:51:18,090 --> 00:51:19,090
personal freedom.

665
00:51:19,590 --> 00:51:20,790
Not always, obviously.

666
00:51:21,070 --> 00:51:25,290
I mean, we can look at things like 1984
to see how many of these narratives have

667
00:51:25,290 --> 00:51:26,690
decidedly bleak endings.

668
00:51:27,830 --> 00:51:33,890
I think the sense of civilization simply
disintegrating is a much scarier thing

669
00:51:33,890 --> 00:51:36,070
than it being taken over.

670
00:51:36,950 --> 00:51:40,610
Because, you know, we can see how
nightmarish that is in countries where

671
00:51:40,610 --> 00:51:46,130
it has happened and where life suddenly
becomes pretty much entirely worthless.

672
00:51:47,660 --> 00:51:51,320
You know, at least in the movies about
the European dictatorships, they're

673
00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:53,180
still generally functioning societies.

674
00:51:53,880 --> 00:52:00,160
Not free societies, certainly, but, you
know, they still

675
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:02,680
operate on a day-to-day level.

676
00:52:03,860 --> 00:52:08,880
Something like this, you can see that
everything you do, everything that makes

677
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:15,820
you feel safe, everything that is
civilized has gone, and it's just

678
00:52:15,820 --> 00:52:17,020
been replaced with...

679
00:52:17,450 --> 00:52:24,410
very random violence and i think this
long

680
00:52:24,410 --> 00:52:29,410
sequence that we've been watching here
is you know a great example of that that

681
00:52:29,410 --> 00:52:35,490
it just the sheer level of cruelty

682
00:52:35,490 --> 00:52:42,050
of dehumanization of thinking

683
00:52:42,050 --> 00:52:45,330
that the only way you deal with people
is

684
00:52:46,110 --> 00:52:51,450
through violence which is clearly where
he's reached you know it's the point

685
00:52:51,450 --> 00:52:55,490
he's reached in life and maybe at the
point he was always at in life that's

686
00:52:55,490 --> 00:53:00,910
the interesting thing we can uh we can
argue about that just how much he's

687
00:53:00,910 --> 00:53:04,390
someone who's been corrupted by what's
happened in the world and how much he

688
00:53:04,390 --> 00:53:11,270
was already very corrupt but yeah you
know i mean i think that these films

689
00:53:11,270 --> 00:53:18,050
films like this offer so little sense of
hope even for

690
00:53:18,050 --> 00:53:23,370
people who would you know maybe in a in
a dystopian dictatorship be happy to toe

691
00:53:23,370 --> 00:53:28,090
the line obey the rules and and get on
with life that isn't even an option for

692
00:53:28,090 --> 00:53:29,090
people here

693
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:48,080
So let's talk a little bit more about
Anastaschenko.

694
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:54,000
I'm going to go out on a limb and say
that it's probable that most of the

695
00:53:54,000 --> 00:54:00,080
people who buy this disc will not be all
that familiar with Kazakh cinema and its

696
00:54:00,080 --> 00:54:01,080
stars.

697
00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:07,320
Some of you might be, I mean some of you
may be Kazakh so you know I'm not making

698
00:54:07,320 --> 00:54:12,120
a blanket statement but on the whole I
think that that's probably going to be

699
00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:12,939
the case.

700
00:54:12,940 --> 00:54:17,420
I think even if you are, you might not
be particularly familiar with her

701
00:54:17,420 --> 00:54:24,260
because this is only her second movie
after making the film Natai in 2022.

702
00:54:25,770 --> 00:54:32,750
Since making this film, she's also been
in Aralkan Yersinov's next movie,

703
00:54:32,910 --> 00:54:34,770
the horror film Kadett.

704
00:54:35,350 --> 00:54:41,450
Prior to this, she studied at the Kazakh
National University of Arts between 2009

705
00:54:41,450 --> 00:54:48,190
and 2013, and she graduated from the
Russian Institute of Theatrical

706
00:54:48,190 --> 00:54:50,390
Arts in 2017.

707
00:54:52,330 --> 00:54:56,010
I mean, perhaps it's because she's not a
hardened screen actor that she manages

708
00:54:56,010 --> 00:54:59,110
to give such an honest and affecting
performance.

709
00:55:00,190 --> 00:55:06,270
I think somebody more experienced may
well have been inclined to act a bit too

710
00:55:06,270 --> 00:55:09,450
much rather than taking the less is more
approach.

711
00:55:10,130 --> 00:55:13,470
I think that she's genuinely superb in
this.

712
00:55:14,090 --> 00:55:16,370
Maybe the best thing about the movie.

713
00:55:17,240 --> 00:55:20,780
So I think that there are strong
performances all around, even from the

714
00:55:20,780 --> 00:55:21,860
supporting characters.

715
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:29,280
But certainly, you know, she plays her
part very well. She seems very

716
00:55:29,280 --> 00:55:36,260
convincing. And she works well with Eric
Azov, who's a much

717
00:55:36,260 --> 00:55:37,380
more experienced actor.

718
00:55:38,740 --> 00:55:43,960
And, you know, as you can see in the
movie, you know, a very powerful and

719
00:55:43,960 --> 00:55:45,620
unsettling presence.

720
00:55:46,380 --> 00:55:49,980
You know, the kind of person that would
watch a film like this and despite the

721
00:55:49,980 --> 00:55:53,540
fact that you know it's all acting
probably find him a little bit of a

722
00:55:53,540 --> 00:55:56,200
scary person to ever meet.

723
00:55:59,720 --> 00:56:06,520
Eisenhoff has been working solidly since
2007 and I imagine that for most

724
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:12,480
people outside his home country he's
probably best known for his work on the

725
00:56:12,480 --> 00:56:14,780
film The Liquidator in 2011.

726
00:56:15,610 --> 00:56:18,570
where he appeared alongside Vinnie
Jones.

727
00:56:20,170 --> 00:56:21,990
Not quite sure what I should say about
that.

728
00:56:22,730 --> 00:56:23,730
Maybe nothing.

729
00:56:24,570 --> 00:56:30,530
He was also in Yusinov's previous film,
Goliath, which is, if you haven't seen

730
00:56:30,530 --> 00:56:34,510
it, it's a pretty impressive crime
drama, well worth checking out. Very

731
00:56:34,510 --> 00:56:38,290
different in style to this film, but in
its own way, equally dark and edgy.

732
00:56:39,970 --> 00:56:45,240
I think that Yusinov does well here with
the role that It is obviously pretty

733
00:56:45,240 --> 00:56:46,440
thankless in many ways.

734
00:56:46,660 --> 00:56:51,500
I know that a lot of actors relish
playing awful characters and that the

735
00:56:51,500 --> 00:56:55,480
villains are quite often the most
interesting characters in the movie.

736
00:56:57,380 --> 00:57:03,360
I do think that his role here is one
that could have very easily become one

737
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:08,000
-dimensional and artificial in the wrong
hands.

738
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:14,090
I think he does a very good job of
humanising his character without ever

739
00:57:14,090 --> 00:57:19,790
making him sympathetic you know he's not
simply a mindless thug

740
00:57:19,790 --> 00:57:26,690
and probably makes him all the more
reprehensible because you know that he

741
00:57:26,690 --> 00:57:30,910
he can read it but you know little
moments like this the kind of crazy

742
00:57:30,910 --> 00:57:37,370
little dance um what's going through his
mind while he's doing this it's it's

743
00:57:37,370 --> 00:57:43,220
these little these little touches that i
could make the character all the more

744
00:57:43,220 --> 00:57:49,680
disturbing because you know this looks
like somebody who is on the constantly

745
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:56,040
on the verge of exploding constantly on
the verge of doing something awful to

746
00:57:56,040 --> 00:58:02,620
somebody who may or may not deserve it
and clearly he's you know hugely

747
00:58:02,620 --> 00:58:06,800
unsympathetic to Tamara you know making
her go out to identify this child to see

748
00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:11,160
if it's hers just that's

749
00:58:12,160 --> 00:58:14,020
cruel and unnecessary.

750
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:20,880
I suppose it is necessary that she has
to identify the body, but I think you

751
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:23,780
know what I mean. It just seems
sadistic.

752
00:58:25,380 --> 00:58:29,800
I mean, he does a lot with this role
without saying very much.

753
00:58:30,840 --> 00:58:35,100
You watch him and you can see that the
character is constantly thinking,

754
00:58:35,340 --> 00:58:40,540
plotting, working out how to turn things
to his own advantage.

755
00:58:42,570 --> 00:58:47,150
You know, it's a great portrayal of a
very feral character, one who, you know,

756
00:58:47,170 --> 00:58:51,730
you can definitely imagine was already
corrupt and brutal long before whatever

757
00:58:51,730 --> 00:58:53,110
has happened, happened.

758
00:58:54,930 --> 00:58:59,790
If anything, you can kind of imagine
that this catastrophe has played into

759
00:58:59,790 --> 00:59:05,070
his hands, bringing out his instinctive
survival instincts and that he can get

760
00:59:05,070 --> 00:59:09,650
what he wants at whatever cost without
any sense of...

761
00:59:10,480 --> 00:59:12,360
having to answer to anyone anymore.

762
00:59:13,860 --> 00:59:17,920
So in a way I think he's probably just
as broken as Tamara.

763
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:23,820
Obviously he has this kind of
psychopathic lack of empathy except

764
00:59:23,820 --> 00:59:29,460
where it works at his advantage and he
can fake being personable when he needs

765
00:59:29,460 --> 00:59:30,460
to.

766
00:59:30,720 --> 00:59:37,520
It's the classic psychopath behaviour
that they can act at all knowing what

767
00:59:37,520 --> 00:59:39,460
people expect of them but

768
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:42,140
None of it is genuine.

769
00:59:42,480 --> 00:59:45,040
None of the emotions shown are real.

770
00:59:47,460 --> 00:59:52,980
I think this is a fine, subtle piece of
acting. And I say subtle because even

771
00:59:52,980 --> 00:59:59,240
though his performance is quite big and
broad, there's a lot more going on

772
00:59:59,240 --> 01:00:00,580
under the surface.

773
01:00:05,930 --> 01:00:09,910
You know, and I think scenes like the
one we've just seen with the kind of

774
01:00:09,910 --> 01:00:11,190
weird childlike game.

775
01:00:12,390 --> 01:00:19,350
Again, interesting examples of how he is
playing with her,

776
01:00:19,410 --> 01:00:24,790
but not in a positive way. You know,
he's kind of leading her into thinking

777
01:00:24,790 --> 01:00:31,610
that he's somebody that wants to help
her, but only in order to get what he

778
01:00:31,610 --> 01:00:32,610
needs.

779
01:00:35,150 --> 01:00:39,550
I think he pulls off the odd impossible
that he makes us relate to the character

780
01:00:39,550 --> 01:00:43,810
while still wanting us to see him get
his comeuppance.

781
01:00:45,070 --> 01:00:50,470
It's a difficult balancing act because
obviously there are only two central

782
01:00:50,470 --> 01:00:55,510
characters that are with us throughout
the film. And so we need to find them at

783
01:00:55,510 --> 01:00:56,650
least interesting.

784
01:00:57,110 --> 01:01:01,450
Maybe even sympathetic without
necessarily liking them.

785
01:01:02,760 --> 01:01:06,560
I don't think any movie would work with
two characters who were utterly

786
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:11,660
unrelatable, utterly without any sense
of redemption.

787
01:01:13,380 --> 01:01:14,920
That would be very hard going.

788
01:01:16,200 --> 01:01:21,040
I mean, like I said earlier, even the
most awful people in real life are not

789
01:01:21,040 --> 01:01:22,340
one-dimensional villains.

790
01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:27,640
They'll all have their good points,
their humanity, their moments of

791
01:01:27,640 --> 01:01:31,420
kindness, their humour, whatever it is.

792
01:01:32,780 --> 01:01:37,520
You know, when you think of dictators
and historical monsters, it's clear that

793
01:01:37,520 --> 01:01:42,400
they all obviously had some sort of
charisma that enabled them to climb to

794
01:01:42,400 --> 01:01:46,260
power in the first place, because no one
can do that on their own.

795
01:01:47,100 --> 01:01:50,620
You know, the worst people are often
very good at convincing others that

796
01:01:50,620 --> 01:01:54,860
they're decent, even heroic, that they
have the best interests of others at

797
01:01:54,860 --> 01:01:59,260
heart, their mission, their group of
people, whoever it is that they need to

798
01:01:59,260 --> 01:02:00,260
convince.

799
01:02:00,950 --> 01:02:04,830
The psychopaths are noted for being very
manipulative because they don't have

800
01:02:04,830 --> 01:02:08,950
properly functioning emotions, so they
just act that role convincingly for

801
01:02:08,950 --> 01:02:10,090
whoever they're trying to use.

802
01:02:12,430 --> 01:02:16,910
Again, I think that a lot of movies we
see with psychopathic characters, those

803
01:02:16,910 --> 01:02:18,270
characters are a bit too broad.

804
01:02:18,690 --> 01:02:23,110
I suppose we tend to think of psychos in
terms of psycho killers, madmen, people

805
01:02:23,110 --> 01:02:27,130
who are deranged, and so those
interpretations tend to become a bit

806
01:02:27,130 --> 01:02:28,130
over the top.

807
01:02:29,270 --> 01:02:30,270
But, you know...

808
01:02:30,380 --> 01:02:34,220
He does a great job here of being
unbalanced enough for us to see just how

809
01:02:34,220 --> 01:02:38,140
screwed up he is, while also being
horribly exploitative.

810
01:02:38,940 --> 01:02:40,460
So, you know, our symptoms are limited.

811
01:02:41,260 --> 01:02:46,140
And the film, again, likes to give him
just enough of a backstory to intrigue

812
01:02:46,140 --> 01:02:51,340
us, you know, like what has gone on with
his family to make him do this with his

813
01:02:51,340 --> 01:02:55,420
brother to lead to such a violent
moment. And his prayer is such a nice

814
01:02:55,420 --> 01:02:59,300
touch because it's obviously an
imitation of what he's seen Samara do

815
01:02:59,300 --> 01:03:04,220
earlier. Again, it's somebody behaving
as he believes he is supposed to rather

816
01:03:04,220 --> 01:03:06,800
than somebody expressing a real human
emotion.

817
01:03:07,200 --> 01:03:09,320
So I think that's a really nice, subtle
touch.

818
01:03:10,540 --> 01:03:15,140
You know, this whole interaction again
with his brother, I assume his brother,

819
01:03:15,240 --> 01:03:18,120
kind of leaves us with more questions
than answers.

820
01:03:18,380 --> 01:03:20,860
You know, what happened to bring him to
this point?

821
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:25,180
What has gone on in the family?

822
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:30,520
But the film doesn't need to tell us. It
can let us make up our own backstory for

823
01:03:30,520 --> 01:03:35,740
everybody involved here. And that's
potentially more interesting because our

824
01:03:35,740 --> 01:03:39,080
backstories can be equally as valid as
anybody else's.

825
01:03:39,920 --> 01:03:46,800
So, you know, there's far too many films
that just feel like they have to spell

826
01:03:46,800 --> 01:03:51,320
everything out because the last thing
they want are audiences scratching their

827
01:03:51,320 --> 01:03:53,340
heads and saying, who was that?

828
01:03:53,920 --> 01:03:54,920
Why was that?

829
01:03:55,680 --> 01:03:56,760
What's been going on?

830
01:03:57,520 --> 01:04:02,460
Everything has to be kind of hammered
home and explained to you like you're an

831
01:04:02,460 --> 01:04:03,460
idiot.

832
01:04:04,320 --> 01:04:09,840
And there's room for ambiguity. There's
room for not knowing.

833
01:04:10,700 --> 01:04:14,420
You know, the great thing about
something like, say, Dawn of the Dead,

834
01:04:14,460 --> 01:04:17,980
not to the living dead, to a degree, not
to the living dead, doesn't quite work

835
01:04:17,980 --> 01:04:22,540
this way. But, you know, if you look at
Dawn of the Dead as a sort of standalone

836
01:04:22,540 --> 01:04:23,540
continuation.

837
01:04:24,410 --> 01:04:27,550
Again, there's no explanation as to why
the zombies are rising. They're just

838
01:04:27,550 --> 01:04:28,670
there. They're just doing it.

839
01:04:29,390 --> 01:04:34,550
And even in Night of the Living Dead,
there's the interest that it's to do

840
01:04:34,550 --> 01:04:37,690
with a space probe, maybe bringing back
some alien infection, but that's never

841
01:04:37,690 --> 01:04:39,770
confirmed. That's just a theory.

842
01:04:40,470 --> 01:04:46,950
So, really, the film just has the dead
rising, and

843
01:04:46,950 --> 01:04:48,250
nobody knows why.

844
01:04:55,370 --> 01:04:59,430
I think one of the most impressive
things about this particular film is

845
01:04:59,430 --> 01:05:06,030
just how gorgeous it is given the bleak
narrative and

846
01:05:06,030 --> 01:05:09,450
the equally bleak barren locations.

847
01:05:10,750 --> 01:05:17,050
This is definitely a film that makes the
most of its landscape and manages to

848
01:05:17,050 --> 01:05:20,410
bring a certain grandeur to an empty
wilderness.

849
01:05:21,430 --> 01:05:23,130
I think in that it

850
01:05:23,950 --> 01:05:27,010
very similar to a lot of the Westerns
that inspired it, I guess.

851
01:05:27,310 --> 01:05:32,650
You know, that's a genre that often used
the size and the emptiness of the open

852
01:05:32,650 --> 01:05:38,830
spaces of the West to full advantage,
often almost playing with agoraphobia to

853
01:05:38,830 --> 01:05:44,730
make deserts and empty spaces seem
actually more threatening than dark,

854
01:05:44,790 --> 01:05:45,970
closed-in locales.

855
01:05:48,330 --> 01:05:52,170
Equally, Steppenwolf is a film that
knows

856
01:05:52,890 --> 01:05:57,710
how to best exploit the world it
occupies. And, you know, it doesn't have

857
01:05:57,710 --> 01:05:59,750
a lot to work with. That's the
interesting thing.

858
01:06:00,410 --> 01:06:01,730
You know, you look here,

859
01:06:02,450 --> 01:06:06,070
you look, like, out the window, you look
at the scenery.

860
01:06:06,750 --> 01:06:10,550
There's not much going on.

861
01:06:12,670 --> 01:06:18,730
So to try and make that seem grand, seem
epic, seem

862
01:06:18,730 --> 01:06:20,990
dangerous?

863
01:06:21,880 --> 01:06:25,000
Now, I think that's a skill.

864
01:06:26,160 --> 01:06:31,620
A lot of the credit for this must go to
the director of photography,

865
01:06:31,900 --> 01:06:37,780
Yekinbek Petrelif, who is one of
Kazakhstan's most acclaimed

866
01:06:37,780 --> 01:06:42,180
cinematographers. I'm kind of hoping
that I'm not mangling Kazakh names, by

867
01:06:42,180 --> 01:06:44,060
the way. Sorry if I am.

868
01:06:44,520 --> 01:06:46,020
I'm doing my best with pronunciation.

869
01:06:47,340 --> 01:06:50,460
But yeah, as I say, he's one of
Kazakhstan's most acclaimed

870
01:06:50,460 --> 01:06:54,100
cinematographers with very good reason,
as you can probably appreciate watching

871
01:06:54,100 --> 01:06:55,100
this.

872
01:06:55,680 --> 01:07:00,760
I think he definitely brings this movie
an epic scope that suits the narrative.

873
01:07:01,440 --> 01:07:06,900
And I think the fact that he graduated
to making feature films from the

874
01:07:06,900 --> 01:07:11,300
documentary world probably helps him
bring a certain realism to the look of a

875
01:07:11,300 --> 01:07:14,600
film, even as he explores the vastness.

876
01:07:16,300 --> 01:07:20,640
I think it will be much easier for
everybody involved to make a movie like

877
01:07:20,640 --> 01:07:27,040
this, dark, claustrophobic, oppressive,
because, you know, it is, after all, a

878
01:07:27,040 --> 01:07:30,700
character study of two damaged people at
its heart.

879
01:07:31,260 --> 01:07:36,980
But I think the decision to kind of open
it up, have it take place primarily in

880
01:07:36,980 --> 01:07:43,080
very bright daylight, you know, give it
that set of grandness, you know, I think

881
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:44,800
that was absolutely the right.

882
01:07:45,200 --> 01:07:46,200
the right choice.

883
01:07:47,740 --> 01:07:53,920
And I think that that bigness of the
film is something that's also helped by

884
01:07:53,920 --> 01:07:58,940
Gallim's and Moldan Azar's impressive

885
01:07:58,940 --> 01:08:05,880
soundtrack music which you know is it's
a very 1980s inspired

886
01:08:05,880 --> 01:08:09,340
10th wave score that perhaps shouldn't
work

887
01:08:10,380 --> 01:08:14,780
You know, you might reasonably expect a
film like this to have a rather darker,

888
01:08:14,880 --> 01:08:17,240
maybe more minimalist soundtrack.

889
01:08:18,300 --> 01:08:21,899
But I think the score is actually
inspired.

890
01:08:22,160 --> 01:08:23,720
You know, it opens the movie up.

891
01:08:23,979 --> 01:08:28,340
It helps give it that scope that it
might otherwise lack.

892
01:08:28,680 --> 01:08:33,300
You know, and on top of that, it's
genuinely great music. I think a lot of

893
01:08:33,300 --> 01:08:38,319
these 1980s pastiche electronic
soundtracks can be...

894
01:08:38,700 --> 01:08:42,340
can be quite often a bit hit and miss
sometimes they labor the point a bit too

895
01:08:42,340 --> 01:08:47,180
much they perhaps don't get quite what
it was that made those original scores

896
01:08:47,180 --> 01:08:52,979
work because they're just trying to do a
second-hand version of it but i think uh

897
01:08:52,979 --> 01:08:58,220
this movie um doesn't think here that
says that this film trained to look like

898
01:08:58,220 --> 01:09:02,740
an eight season film and so the
soundtrack actually impressively works

899
01:09:02,740 --> 01:09:07,689
because you know it's you know and it is
used fairly sparingly it doesn't

900
01:09:07,689 --> 01:09:13,069
overwhelm the film it just opens it out
at the right moment so you know i don't

901
01:09:13,069 --> 01:09:16,149
know if there's um if there's a
soundtrack to this available there

902
01:09:16,149 --> 01:09:20,910
probably should be there are plenty of
labels out there who who really should

903
01:09:20,910 --> 01:09:24,090
be picking this up whether they're aware
of the film or not i don't know but

904
01:09:24,090 --> 01:09:29,750
hopefully again releases like the one
you are watching now will help boost the

905
01:09:29,750 --> 01:09:34,210
profile of the film and get that
soundtrack out there where you want the

906
01:09:34,210 --> 01:09:35,210
vinyl

907
01:09:36,880 --> 01:09:41,340
Of course, the music also helps tie the
film to genre cinema.

908
01:09:41,939 --> 01:09:46,120
Because, of course, you know, genre
cinema is where that kind of electronic

909
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:48,140
score was most often used.

910
01:09:48,899 --> 01:09:53,520
That kind of John Carpenter synth score
is something that you connect to a

911
01:09:53,520 --> 01:09:54,820
certain kind of movie.

912
01:09:55,640 --> 01:09:59,680
And, you know, you could easily see the
influences here of Carpenter's films,

913
01:09:59,720 --> 01:10:04,380
like Escape from New York, Assault on
Precinct 13, as we mentioned earlier.

914
01:10:05,210 --> 01:10:10,850
movies themselves made by a director who
was fully immersed in genre history and

915
01:10:10,850 --> 01:10:16,870
was actually reinventing the western in
particular in modern dress i know that

916
01:10:16,870 --> 01:10:21,930
for for years in the in the early 1980s
captain had wanted to make an actual

917
01:10:21,930 --> 01:10:27,930
western you know a film set in the west
you know a kind of a real bravo type

918
01:10:27,930 --> 01:10:31,850
movie but of course in many ways he'd
already done it a few times at that

919
01:10:31,850 --> 01:10:32,850
point

920
01:10:34,570 --> 01:10:37,250
I'm actually a big fan of movies that
play with genre.

921
01:10:37,790 --> 01:10:42,370
The ones that take elements from several
different genres to create something

922
01:10:42,370 --> 01:10:44,190
fresh and original.

923
01:10:45,650 --> 01:10:52,050
It's kind of interesting how people tend
to be so single genre

924
01:10:52,050 --> 01:10:56,990
fixated that they have to kind of
pigeonhole a movie into one or maybe two

925
01:10:56,990 --> 01:11:02,070
specific genres when it's clearly
playing with ideas from several.

926
01:11:02,700 --> 01:11:07,540
But it has to be, this is a such and
such film with elements of this.

927
01:11:09,200 --> 01:11:13,000
You know, I think we like to categorize
things, don't we? I mean, you know, you

928
01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:16,880
look at musical genres, you look at
movie genres. People like to put things

929
01:11:16,880 --> 01:11:23,300
in little boxes so they can relate to
what it is and they can decide, is it

930
01:11:23,300 --> 01:11:24,360
their thing, is it not their thing?

931
01:11:25,580 --> 01:11:28,040
You know, I think Steppenwolf is a great
case in point.

932
01:11:28,700 --> 01:11:31,040
You know, Yersinov is taking bits from
here.

933
01:11:31,800 --> 01:11:36,540
bits from there, blending them together
to make something fresh and new.

934
01:11:37,280 --> 01:11:42,140
I mean, obviously, the Western is the
most obvious influence, and it's the one

935
01:11:42,140 --> 01:11:46,240
that he has very specifically referenced
in interviews and in the film itself.

936
01:11:46,820 --> 01:11:50,580
You know, I mean, there's no attempt to
hide the fact that this is effectively a

937
01:11:50,580 --> 01:11:51,920
reworking of the searchers.

938
01:11:52,260 --> 01:11:57,080
That early shot of Tamara in the doorway
virtually screaming the influence at you

939
01:11:57,080 --> 01:11:58,080
right away.

940
01:11:58,420 --> 01:12:00,380
You know, you don't have to be a...

941
01:12:01,050 --> 01:12:05,650
a hardened, silly-ass movie expert to
recognise that that is a reference

942
01:12:05,650 --> 01:12:08,330
point. You know, that's a very smart
move, by the way.

943
01:12:08,690 --> 01:12:12,770
There'll always be critics who want to
show how smart they are by spotting the

944
01:12:12,770 --> 01:12:16,150
fact that a film has ripped off an
earlier movie.

945
01:12:16,430 --> 01:12:23,330
So I think stating that influence up
front in what is effectively the second

946
01:12:23,330 --> 01:12:29,890
scene in the movie, you know, putting it
up there, so stating the influence

947
01:12:30,630 --> 01:12:32,350
Kind of effectively silences critics.

948
01:12:32,990 --> 01:12:37,010
You know, Yusinov is hardly trying to
hide where he's taken his central

949
01:12:37,010 --> 01:12:38,010
narrative from.

950
01:12:40,090 --> 01:12:44,850
But there are a lot of other connections
you can make here, and I'm not going to

951
01:12:44,850 --> 01:12:49,090
go into all of them because it's a lot
more fun to let you try and pick up on

952
01:12:49,090 --> 01:12:50,090
these yourself.

953
01:12:50,390 --> 01:12:53,370
And also, you know, there are probably
some that I've missed, some that will

954
01:12:53,370 --> 01:12:56,210
become noticeable on further viewings.

955
01:12:57,200 --> 01:13:01,720
I think this is one of those films that
will reward repeated viewing because

956
01:13:01,720 --> 01:13:06,180
it's something that I think will offer
something new every time you watch it.

957
01:13:06,260 --> 01:13:11,860
It's certainly done that. I mean, I've
seen the film. This

958
01:13:11,860 --> 01:13:16,000
country is my third viewing of the film.

959
01:13:18,660 --> 01:13:23,540
So, you know, I've watched it properly a
couple of times and now I'm...

960
01:13:23,930 --> 01:13:28,730
watching it again and there are the
moments that just pop out moments that

961
01:13:28,730 --> 01:13:34,510
may have gone by you the first viewing
the second viewing so I think this is

962
01:13:34,510 --> 01:13:40,570
something that you know it's going to be
a rewarding repeat view

963
01:13:40,570 --> 01:13:47,250
you know clearly there are several genre
connections that we can make nods to

964
01:13:47,250 --> 01:13:52,850
other movies that stand out obviously
there's a lot of Mad Max here Even down

965
01:13:52,850 --> 01:13:57,970
to the fact that our central character
is a cop whose family has been killed

966
01:13:57,970 --> 01:13:59,370
and he's seeking revenge.

967
01:13:59,650 --> 01:14:03,350
That's the major plot turn of the first
Mad Max.

968
01:14:03,590 --> 01:14:08,170
The point where the film becomes
genuinely dystopian when Max's family is

969
01:14:08,170 --> 01:14:09,930
killed and he becomes an avenging angel.

970
01:14:10,370 --> 01:14:13,830
His humanity is kind of chopped off at
that point.

971
01:14:15,030 --> 01:14:19,410
Again, people tend to forget just how
grounded the first Mad Max was, at least

972
01:14:19,410 --> 01:14:23,550
visually. It all happened in a world
that's gone to hell, but it's still very

973
01:14:23,550 --> 01:14:24,550
recognizable.

974
01:14:24,930 --> 01:14:26,530
And that's certainly the case here.

975
01:14:28,010 --> 01:14:33,490
I mean, these shots, the shots on
Hossbach, are pure Western movie,

976
01:14:33,590 --> 01:14:34,590
obviously.

977
01:14:35,430 --> 01:14:41,750
You know, this could easily, you could
just take that shot right now, show it

978
01:14:41,750 --> 01:14:45,630
to somebody, say that's from a Western,
and of course, you know, they're going

979
01:14:45,630 --> 01:14:46,630
to believe you. Why wouldn't they?

980
01:14:49,070 --> 01:14:53,810
We could also see the influence of the
Samurai movie and that's where things

981
01:14:53,810 --> 01:15:00,490
get really fun because obviously Samurai
films, Japanese Samurai films or people

982
01:15:00,490 --> 01:15:07,450
like Kurosawa, there's cross-pollination
between those movies and

983
01:15:07,450 --> 01:15:13,870
Westerns where Westerns influenced
Kurosawa, Kurosawa then influenced

984
01:15:13,870 --> 01:15:17,330
Westerns, particularly the spaghetti
Westerns.

985
01:15:17,950 --> 01:15:22,030
That would then, of course, go on to
influence American Westerns and the way

986
01:15:22,030 --> 01:15:23,050
those films looked.

987
01:15:23,710 --> 01:15:29,110
And those Westerns would then feed into
the post-apocalypse movie. I just find

988
01:15:29,110 --> 01:15:35,510
all this really fascinating, the whole
idea of how we just see something, take

989
01:15:35,510 --> 01:15:41,350
it, we change it to something else. And
then the thing that was inspiring us can

990
01:15:41,350 --> 01:15:44,830
become inspired by what we've done so
that there's constant growth.

991
01:15:46,440 --> 01:15:47,660
new levels of inspiration.

992
01:15:48,560 --> 01:15:53,880
I love that. I think that's the very
definition of creativity to me.

993
01:15:55,300 --> 01:16:00,560
There's something very intriguing about
a movie that takes a familiar story or a

994
01:16:00,560 --> 01:16:05,960
visual palette and transposes it to a
different genre, a different time, a

995
01:16:05,960 --> 01:16:06,960
different place.

996
01:16:07,540 --> 01:16:12,900
As has often been said, there's probably
only a handful of core narratives in the

997
01:16:12,900 --> 01:16:13,900
world.

998
01:16:14,089 --> 01:16:17,450
that everything else has been spun off
from one way or another.

999
01:16:17,930 --> 01:16:24,030
And clearly the idea of the strong,
silent anti-hero arriving in a corrupt

1000
01:16:24,030 --> 01:16:29,450
town and playing two sides up against
each other for his own purposes is

1001
01:16:29,450 --> 01:16:34,730
something that can be endlessly
reworked. We've seen that used in sci-fi

1002
01:16:34,730 --> 01:16:39,470
and action movies, even in dramas,
because you can make a narrative like

1003
01:16:39,470 --> 01:16:41,690
that work without even involving any
violence.

1004
01:16:45,680 --> 01:16:51,220
So I think the gritty crime films of the
1970s, especially things like Dirty

1005
01:16:51,220 --> 01:16:57,420
Harry and all the Italian polizioteschi,
they all play a part here as well.

1006
01:16:57,940 --> 01:17:03,840
You know, you can get that vibe, even if
it is just in that sense of

1007
01:17:03,840 --> 01:17:08,220
having a hero who is simply the least
flawed.

1008
01:17:09,870 --> 01:17:13,130
I mean the cop in this film is a
particularly dirty cop but all those

1009
01:17:13,130 --> 01:17:17,290
movies tended to play on ideas of the
cops and the criminals being essentially

1010
01:17:17,290 --> 01:17:22,650
two sides of the same coin and plenty of
the Italian films in particular were

1011
01:17:22,650 --> 01:17:28,810
themed around stories of vengeance and
heroes working outside law.

1012
01:17:31,770 --> 01:17:37,570
And I mean this is of course at its
heart a road movie as much as anything

1013
01:17:37,570 --> 01:17:43,060
else. Road movies are always intriguing
in the way that they all play with

1014
01:17:43,060 --> 01:17:47,820
metaphor. Pretty obvious metaphor, of
course. The road represents the

1015
01:17:47,820 --> 01:17:50,620
emotional, psychological journey of the
characters involved.

1016
01:17:51,480 --> 01:17:52,980
We have that here.

1017
01:17:53,920 --> 01:18:00,380
Certainly for Tamara, who I think we can
say finds her inner strength by the end

1018
01:18:00,380 --> 01:18:01,380
of the movie.

1019
01:18:01,880 --> 01:18:06,600
The film doesn't go for some kind of
cliché.

1020
01:18:07,100 --> 01:18:12,000
crowd-pleasing moment of the victimized
woman suddenly becoming a kick-ass

1021
01:18:12,000 --> 01:18:16,980
action hero and it's not it's not like
the terminator movies or something like

1022
01:18:16,980 --> 01:18:23,300
that you know she is still very damaged
very vulnerable and while she gets to

1023
01:18:23,300 --> 01:18:27,880
return to her own private world at the
end of the film you know you can't help

1024
01:18:27,880 --> 01:18:34,860
but think that her future is still going
to be pretty bleak but Having said

1025
01:18:34,860 --> 01:18:38,220
all that, she's clearly found the
strength she needs to fulfil her

1026
01:18:38,220 --> 01:18:41,240
mission, to rescue her son and the
children.

1027
01:18:41,500 --> 01:18:43,040
And she's stood up for herself.

1028
01:18:43,780 --> 01:18:49,140
It's interesting that she goes from
earlier seemingly wanting to be killed

1029
01:18:49,140 --> 01:18:55,600
by the cops, she literally says, kill me
once you've rescued him, to

1030
01:18:55,600 --> 01:19:00,460
killing him, which you might say is the
only way that a film like Steppenwolf

1031
01:19:00,460 --> 01:19:07,190
can... can end satisfactorily you might
be right but then I don't

1032
01:19:07,190 --> 01:19:12,070
really think that Steppenwolf is in the
business of satisfying the viewer I

1033
01:19:12,070 --> 01:19:18,930
don't think this is a feel good movie so
the ending didn't need

1034
01:19:18,930 --> 01:19:24,930
to deliver any sense of catharsis the
ending could have easily been as

1035
01:19:24,930 --> 01:19:31,210
nihilistic as the rest of the film it
could allow evil to triumph because

1036
01:19:31,890 --> 01:19:35,590
Sadly, you know, evil quite often
triumphs in the real world.

1037
01:19:37,010 --> 01:19:43,510
Yeah, so I think that the fact that the
film ends with Tamara

1038
01:19:43,510 --> 01:19:50,470
going back to her life, having done what
she set out to do, you

1039
01:19:50,470 --> 01:19:53,930
know, it does that because that's what
film, that's what the filmmakers want,

1040
01:19:54,150 --> 01:19:58,430
not because it thinks that that's what
the viewer wants and it's delivering the

1041
01:19:58,430 --> 01:19:59,430
goods.

1042
01:20:03,850 --> 01:20:07,470
You know, there's a lot to be said for a
film as being crowd-pleasing.

1043
01:20:08,190 --> 01:20:13,950
We don't always want to be beat over the
head. We don't always want to leave a

1044
01:20:13,950 --> 01:20:18,390
film feeling more depressed than we were
when we started watching it.

1045
01:20:18,610 --> 01:20:25,290
But at the same time, I think a lot of
films have

1046
01:20:25,290 --> 01:20:27,090
very compromised endings.

1047
01:20:27,330 --> 01:20:34,110
Endings that, as we know, people will
watch films in production they'll go to

1048
01:20:34,110 --> 01:20:38,930
preview screenings, write down their
comments and then studios will insist on

1049
01:20:38,930 --> 01:20:43,750
changes being made and the ending is
quite often the point where changes get

1050
01:20:43,750 --> 01:20:50,690
made because audiences obviously have
this idea

1051
01:20:50,690 --> 01:20:55,390
of how they want something to end and
they want it to end in a very satisfying

1052
01:20:55,390 --> 01:20:58,930
way which doesn't always help the story
but...

1053
01:20:59,550 --> 01:21:04,570
You know, that's just the way it is. I
mean, I imagine a film like this has not

1054
01:21:04,570 --> 01:21:09,350
gone through too many committees during
production or post-production.

1055
01:21:09,830 --> 01:21:14,050
And so it's essentially been able to go
its own way.

1056
01:21:21,070 --> 01:21:27,370
So I really should... talk at this point
about the director and writer of the

1057
01:21:27,370 --> 01:21:28,370
film, Adol Khan.

1058
01:21:28,630 --> 01:21:33,370
Yes, and I've obviously mentioned him
throughout, but we've not actually

1059
01:21:33,370 --> 01:21:34,329
discussed him.

1060
01:21:34,330 --> 01:21:39,810
You know, he's not somebody who is
especially well-known in the West.

1061
01:21:40,370 --> 01:21:44,930
You know, he's had films that have
played at festivals like Cannes and

1062
01:21:44,930 --> 01:21:49,930
Venice, but generally speaking, I think
that... distribution of his work

1063
01:21:49,930 --> 01:21:55,330
international distribution of his work
has been somewhat sporadic and often

1064
01:21:55,330 --> 01:22:01,690
restricted to the the art house circuit
it's not been

1065
01:22:01,690 --> 01:22:08,370
kind of widely available commercially um
particularly on on home video where of

1066
01:22:08,370 --> 01:22:13,490
course most people see their films most
films don't get any kind of theatrical

1067
01:22:13,490 --> 01:22:14,490
release

1068
01:22:15,630 --> 01:22:18,130
If they do, quite often it's a very
small theatrical release.

1069
01:22:19,050 --> 01:22:23,990
He's a filmmaker who has been working
incessantly since making his debut

1070
01:22:23,990 --> 01:22:26,770
feature, Rialto, in 2011.

1071
01:22:27,390 --> 01:22:31,410
I don't say that lightly. I do mean he's
worked incessantly.

1072
01:22:31,970 --> 01:22:37,450
The man has made 17 features in 13
years, as well as making shorts and

1073
01:22:37,450 --> 01:22:38,450
working TV.

1074
01:22:39,280 --> 01:22:45,560
He made five different productions in
2022 alone, which kind of puts him on

1075
01:22:45,560 --> 01:22:49,920
the same level of prolific filmmakers
from the 1970s, like Jess Franco.

1076
01:22:51,440 --> 01:22:55,800
So, you know, if you've been impressed
by this, his previous film, Goliath,

1077
01:22:55,940 --> 01:23:01,400
which is probably the second most
accessible of his works at the moment,

1078
01:23:01,600 --> 01:23:03,840
honestly, there's a lot to explore.

1079
01:23:04,120 --> 01:23:08,960
But the great thing is that I think what
we can see is that He's making a lot of

1080
01:23:08,960 --> 01:23:11,840
films and he's doing stuff, I guess,
very quickly.

1081
01:23:12,320 --> 01:23:16,780
But at the same time, there's no
skimping on the quality of these movies.

1082
01:23:16,860 --> 01:23:22,120
These are all fantastic films, at least
in terms of the ones that I've seen. So,

1083
01:23:22,120 --> 01:23:27,000
you know, this isn't somebody who's just
grinding out crap.

1084
01:23:27,280 --> 01:23:29,660
He's making quality stuff.

1085
01:23:31,480 --> 01:23:35,720
I mean, he's a filmmaker whose work
seems to cross genres.

1086
01:23:36,750 --> 01:23:42,370
Most of his films, most of the stuff
he's done has generally been more

1087
01:23:42,370 --> 01:23:43,390
realist dramas.

1088
01:23:44,510 --> 01:23:47,750
I'm not saying that Steppenwolf isn't
grimly realist, but I think you know

1089
01:23:47,750 --> 01:23:54,490
what I mean. Maybe more grounded dramas,
as well as thrillers and

1090
01:23:54,490 --> 01:23:55,890
crime movies like Goliath.

1091
01:23:56,470 --> 01:24:01,730
His latest film, Cadet, as I mentioned
earlier, is a horror film, so perhaps

1092
01:24:01,730 --> 01:24:06,110
he's continuing with his exploration of
genre with that.

1093
01:24:06,390 --> 01:24:11,110
It's yet to be released, so we have to
wait and see, but I'm very much looking

1094
01:24:11,110 --> 01:24:17,270
forward to that. Hopefully it will be
something that gets a UK release, a US

1095
01:24:17,270 --> 01:24:20,670
release, maybe play the festival
circuit.

1096
01:24:22,810 --> 01:24:28,230
I think my hope is that the wider
release that Steppenwolf is receiving,

1097
01:24:28,290 --> 01:24:34,010
and the fact that you're watching this
movie on Blu-ray, on...

1098
01:24:34,330 --> 01:24:37,270
whatever format you're watching it on,
but the fact is that you're watching it

1099
01:24:37,270 --> 01:24:42,270
in a way that you probably haven't been
able to do with some of his other films,

1100
01:24:42,390 --> 01:24:48,270
might now mean that his earlier work may
start to find a more global audience,

1101
01:24:48,530 --> 01:24:51,850
because he's clearly a very impressive
talent.

1102
01:24:54,810 --> 01:25:01,570
It's interesting, and I have to say a
bit depressing, just how many

1103
01:25:01,570 --> 01:25:02,610
countries are still

1104
01:25:03,850 --> 01:25:07,630
still somewhat overlooked in terms of
their cinematic output.

1105
01:25:08,450 --> 01:25:12,170
I mean, we've come a long way in the
last few decades, don't get me wrong. I

1106
01:25:12,170 --> 01:25:17,890
mean, I think the film industries of
Japan, South America, India, Pakistan,

1107
01:25:18,270 --> 01:25:24,350
South Korea, China, lots of other
countries. Countries that once were

1108
01:25:24,350 --> 01:25:30,790
culturally marginalised to a degree and
had their movies stuck in that

1109
01:25:30,790 --> 01:25:36,130
art house world rather than having any
sort of commercial wider appeal.

1110
01:25:36,710 --> 01:25:42,110
You know, those now get the sort of
releases that were unimaginable.

1111
01:25:42,330 --> 01:25:44,790
I think we have to thank genre cinema
for that.

1112
01:25:46,330 --> 01:25:52,990
A lot of mainstream movie fans, not even
mainstream, a lot of your kind of self

1113
01:25:52,990 --> 01:25:57,190
-declared intellectual film fans,
various film fans, will look down on

1114
01:25:57,190 --> 01:25:58,650
genre fans.

1115
01:25:59,010 --> 01:26:02,530
But, you know, the truth is that...

1116
01:26:02,840 --> 01:26:09,320
The fan base for horror, for action, for
sci-fi, for westerns, for erotica, or

1117
01:26:09,320 --> 01:26:14,780
whatever else, those fan bases are often
much more open to international cinema

1118
01:26:14,780 --> 01:26:19,580
and experimental cinema than either
mainstream audiences or the arthouse

1119
01:26:19,580 --> 01:26:20,580
audience.

1120
01:26:20,800 --> 01:26:26,620
And, you know, the whole movie market,
since it emerged in the beginning of the

1121
01:26:26,620 --> 01:26:27,620
80s,

1122
01:26:27,960 --> 01:26:33,400
certainly has allowed once marginalized
national cinema to find a wider audience

1123
01:26:33,400 --> 01:26:38,560
than traditional mainstream distributors
ever imagined when films were only

1124
01:26:38,560 --> 01:26:45,040
playing in cinemas but you know a lot of
countries they still have to see the

1125
01:26:45,040 --> 01:26:51,340
domestic cinema breakout of the festival
and art house niche and Kazakstan

1126
01:26:51,340 --> 01:26:57,840
certainly seems to be one of them I mean
to be fair you know kazakh cinema has

1127
01:26:57,840 --> 01:27:03,300
not generally had the best reputation in
its own home country you know a bit like

1128
01:27:03,300 --> 01:27:09,200
british films of the 1980s you know a
lot of people in kazakhstan the locally

1129
01:27:09,200 --> 01:27:16,160
made movies is being kind of worthy arty
not very entertaining made

1130
01:27:16,160 --> 01:27:21,460
with government subsidies that prop up
the film industry and they've struggled

1131
01:27:21,460 --> 01:27:27,880
to compete with More expensive, more
commercial, more entertaining Western

1132
01:27:27,880 --> 01:27:29,320
and Russian movies.

1133
01:27:30,740 --> 01:27:34,680
But, you know, there has been a step
forward.

1134
01:27:35,240 --> 01:27:38,200
More commercial films are now being
made.

1135
01:27:39,100 --> 01:27:43,620
More popular films are now being made.
There was a revolutionary move.

1136
01:27:44,270 --> 01:27:49,450
in the film industry, in the Kazakh film
industry, called Partizan Cinema, which

1137
01:27:49,450 --> 01:27:53,470
feels a little bit like a kind of less
restrictive version of the Dogma 95

1138
01:27:53,470 --> 01:27:59,410
movement, involving people making
socially realistic, low-budget, but

1139
01:27:59,410 --> 01:28:04,850
commercial movies that are made without
data and all the restrictions that

1140
01:28:04,850 --> 01:28:05,990
perhaps come with that.

1141
01:28:06,870 --> 01:28:11,890
So you probably won't be surprised to
hear that Yasanov has been involved with

1142
01:28:11,890 --> 01:28:12,890
that movement.

1143
01:28:14,140 --> 01:28:18,120
Steppenwolf, I don't think is really
part of that.

1144
01:28:18,600 --> 01:28:24,640
This is a film that obviously does have
some state funding, and it's not social

1145
01:28:24,640 --> 01:28:25,640
realism.

1146
01:28:26,820 --> 01:28:32,120
It may be low budget, it may be
commercial, but it's certainly not a

1147
01:28:32,120 --> 01:28:33,120
domestic drama.

1148
01:28:34,160 --> 01:28:38,240
But nevertheless, I think the fact that
it does have state funding shows that we

1149
01:28:38,240 --> 01:28:40,040
can probably assume that whatever
restrictions...

1150
01:28:40,780 --> 01:28:44,700
that are placed on filmmakers using that
funding method are probably not too

1151
01:28:44,700 --> 01:28:49,820
restrictive. You know, I can't really
think of a more problematic narrative

1152
01:28:49,820 --> 01:28:51,800
for any government official than this
one.

1153
01:28:52,820 --> 01:28:54,900
But there you go.

1154
01:28:56,340 --> 01:29:00,140
I mean, of course, the elephant in the
room when we talk about Kazakhstan and

1155
01:29:00,140 --> 01:29:02,100
cinema is Borat.

1156
01:29:02,830 --> 01:29:06,870
Sasha Baron Cohen's typically
stereotyped, some might argue, racist

1157
01:29:06,870 --> 01:29:11,190
character slash movies, who is a Kazakh
journalist.

1158
01:29:11,730 --> 01:29:16,270
I'm sure that all of you are very
familiar with Borat, probably much more

1159
01:29:16,270 --> 01:29:21,010
so than you are with Kazakhstan cinema
in most cases, I'll bet.

1160
01:29:21,730 --> 01:29:25,350
You know, I'm not going to be all holier
than thou and po-faced about what is

1161
01:29:25,350 --> 01:29:29,950
clearly a satirical comedy, but I do
think that the films and the character

1162
01:29:29,950 --> 01:29:32,050
have probably not done much.

1163
01:29:32,430 --> 01:29:37,370
for the cultural reputation of a country
in places where exposure to actual

1164
01:29:37,370 --> 01:29:41,990
Kazakh art has probably been very
limited, if not non-existent.

1165
01:29:46,430 --> 01:29:52,730
So I'm hoping that we'll get to see more
examples of Kazakh cinema emerging

1166
01:29:52,730 --> 01:29:53,730
internationally.

1167
01:29:54,769 --> 01:29:58,990
I'm saying this as somebody who probably
has as much exposure to the films as

1168
01:29:58,990 --> 01:30:03,530
everyone else so it's always possible
that I might eat my words after seeing

1169
01:30:03,530 --> 01:30:09,370
some but you know seriously I suspect
that there's still a wide world of

1170
01:30:09,370 --> 01:30:13,770
undiscovered cinema out there in places
that we tend not to associate with

1171
01:30:13,770 --> 01:30:17,610
filmmaking in fact you know I don't need
to assume that I know there is because

1172
01:30:17,610 --> 01:30:21,250
you know we see examples of these films
turning up from time to time at

1173
01:30:21,250 --> 01:30:28,100
festivals films from places like
Ethiopia that then don't go on to

1174
01:30:28,100 --> 01:30:32,220
get much distribution so that's the
stumbling block I think you know they

1175
01:30:32,220 --> 01:30:37,380
might play the festivals they might be
seen by a handful of people but either

1176
01:30:37,380 --> 01:30:44,140
they're too outside what we see as I

1177
01:30:44,140 --> 01:30:47,920
was going to say commercial cinema not
even commercial cinema maybe what we see

1178
01:30:47,920 --> 01:30:54,270
as proper cinema because you know they
don't all necessarily follow the same

1179
01:30:54,270 --> 01:30:57,690
filmmaking rules that we've all got used
to.

1180
01:31:00,190 --> 01:31:06,150
But it's crazy really because all this
stuff is going pretty much unnoticed but

1181
01:31:06,150 --> 01:31:12,010
given how many outlets there are now for
distributing movies so many boutique

1182
01:31:12,010 --> 01:31:19,010
video labels so many streaming options
it seems

1183
01:31:19,010 --> 01:31:25,160
kind of unacceptable that We're still at
a point where huge amounts of world

1184
01:31:25,160 --> 01:31:27,820
cinema is just not being seen.

1185
01:31:34,800 --> 01:31:39,120
Obviously, I'm going to argue that this
is a pretty exceptional film no matter

1186
01:31:39,120 --> 01:31:40,520
where it comes from.

1187
01:31:41,540 --> 01:31:45,940
I'm not expecting that there will be
loads more like this out there as we

1188
01:31:45,940 --> 01:31:47,580
explore the world of Kazakh cinema.

1189
01:31:48,240 --> 01:31:50,020
Who knows? Maybe there will be.

1190
01:31:50,850 --> 01:31:57,530
Maybe it's a kind of a J-horror
situation

1191
01:31:57,530 --> 01:32:03,690
where you just scratch the surface and
there's so much good stuff.

1192
01:32:04,770 --> 01:32:09,870
But even if it's not, that's not the
case. I don't think we should be seeing

1193
01:32:09,870 --> 01:32:11,230
more of those movies.

1194
01:32:12,150 --> 01:32:15,070
But I think the fact that this release
exists...

1195
01:32:15,530 --> 01:32:19,650
at this time shows that this is
obviously a kind of a cut above the

1196
01:32:19,650 --> 01:32:26,330
average but you know sometimes it takes
a great and accessible film to then pave

1197
01:32:26,330 --> 01:32:30,930
the way for the rest maybe some of those
films won't be quite as commercial but

1198
01:32:30,930 --> 01:32:36,970
you know they still deserve to be seen
and you know this is certainly not not

1199
01:32:36,970 --> 01:32:40,990
an easy film to get into it's not what
we would describe as comfortable viewing

1200
01:32:42,320 --> 01:32:46,420
I think it perhaps becomes a little less
difficult on each subsequent viewing

1201
01:32:46,420 --> 01:32:51,240
because you at least know where it's
heading and can focus on the other

1202
01:32:51,240 --> 01:32:55,780
aspects of the film than simply just
being overwhelmed by the bleakness of it

1203
01:32:55,780 --> 01:33:00,360
all. Which is certainly something that I
think is the case for a lot of viewers.

1204
01:33:01,540 --> 01:33:07,940
I'll admit that I found this to be very,
very hard work for the first 20 minutes

1205
01:33:07,940 --> 01:33:09,280
or so when I first saw it.

1206
01:33:10,240 --> 01:33:11,340
Before it...

1207
01:33:11,640 --> 01:33:18,040
It kind of hit its groove, and I settled
into the film's style and got into terms

1208
01:33:18,040 --> 01:33:24,760
with the sense of nihilism and the very
difficult characters. And I'm a

1209
01:33:24,760 --> 01:33:26,100
big fan of park cinema.

1210
01:33:28,220 --> 01:33:33,960
I'm assuming that if you're listening to
this commentary, that you also like the

1211
01:33:33,960 --> 01:33:36,660
movie. So I'm not going to say to you,
stick with it.

1212
01:33:37,080 --> 01:33:40,380
But certainly that's what I'm advising.

1213
01:33:41,020 --> 01:33:44,820
people who haven't seen the film to do
especially if they're the sort of person

1214
01:33:44,820 --> 01:33:49,540
who might find the unreal ending
grimness of it a bit too much you know i

1215
01:33:49,540 --> 01:33:53,720
think this is a movie that rewards you
for your patience and takes you into

1216
01:33:53,720 --> 01:33:57,920
places that are uncomfortable and
challenging you know i mean i think the

1217
01:33:57,920 --> 01:34:00,920
whole plot point of children being
trafficked and murdered for their organs

1218
01:34:00,920 --> 01:34:05,760
will be very difficult for a lot of
viewers but ultimately i think it's a

1219
01:34:05,760 --> 01:34:11,650
very rewarding experience and you know
it's full of so many amazing moments

1220
01:34:11,650 --> 01:34:16,590
like the one we're seeing now. Just
images of

1221
01:34:16,590 --> 01:34:19,210
corroded beauty.

1222
01:34:22,490 --> 01:34:26,210
I don't think that many people will
think of this as a fun viewing.

1223
01:34:26,910 --> 01:34:31,810
You know, not all cinema needs to be a
sleepism. Not all cinema needs to be fun

1224
01:34:31,810 --> 01:34:32,810
to be appreciated.

1225
01:34:33,730 --> 01:34:38,410
You know, there's room for desolation in
cinema. There's room for something that

1226
01:34:38,410 --> 01:34:42,950
shows you a side of life that you don't
want to see.

1227
01:34:45,150 --> 01:34:47,910
There's room for darkness as well as
light.

1228
01:34:48,390 --> 01:34:53,730
And everybody takes a different approach
to what they find rewarding in a movie,

1229
01:34:53,790 --> 01:34:54,449
I suppose.

1230
01:34:54,450 --> 01:34:57,670
Some people just want throwaway
entertainment. Some people want

1231
01:34:57,670 --> 01:35:04,250
something that is speaking to them on a
much deeper level. And

1232
01:35:04,250 --> 01:35:06,530
perhaps that's what this film does.

1233
01:35:07,760 --> 01:35:11,780
You know, I do think that Steppenwolf
manages to temper its absolute horror

1234
01:35:11,780 --> 01:35:18,540
with just enough visual panache,
inventiveness and genre

1235
01:35:18,540 --> 01:35:25,060
nods to make it much more entertaining
than you might have imagined it to be

1236
01:35:25,060 --> 01:35:29,120
and arguably than it should be.

1237
01:35:30,060 --> 01:35:34,960
It's a film full of brilliant

1238
01:35:35,700 --> 01:35:41,620
One of those films, I think, where you
can just hit pause and there's a pretty

1239
01:35:41,620 --> 01:35:44,760
good chance you'll find a remarkable
still image.

1240
01:35:46,100 --> 01:35:51,060
Incredible moments like the one we've
just seen there, that kind of crazed

1241
01:35:51,060 --> 01:35:53,260
scream of triumph.

1242
01:35:54,740 --> 01:35:56,140
It's minimalism.

1243
01:35:56,860 --> 01:35:59,180
It's lack of compromise.

1244
01:35:59,620 --> 01:36:04,420
I think all of these are points that
make this...

1245
01:36:05,840 --> 01:36:09,420
I mean, it's more than the sum of its
parts, I suppose. They make it a film

1246
01:36:09,420 --> 01:36:14,260
that is recognizable and unique.

1247
01:36:16,160 --> 01:36:17,160
Depressing.

1248
01:36:17,980 --> 01:36:19,220
Sometimes uplifting.

1249
01:36:20,960 --> 01:36:22,280
Ugly. Beautiful.

1250
01:36:25,440 --> 01:36:26,720
You know, and, yeah.

1251
01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:33,200
I think it's an extraordinary piece of
work.

1252
01:36:34,240 --> 01:36:35,240
So...

1253
01:36:35,950 --> 01:36:40,450
Thanks for sticking with it when you
first saw this. Thanks for sticking

1254
01:36:40,450 --> 01:36:46,510
around to listen to me talk about it.
And I hope that every time you see this

1255
01:36:46,510 --> 01:36:49,590
film, you'll find more and more to
appreciate.

1256
01:36:52,530 --> 01:36:58,590
I'm David Flint. This has been
Steppenwolf. And hopefully I'll get to

1257
01:36:58,590 --> 01:37:01,250
run into you again on another commentary
very soon.

1258
01:37:02,290 --> 01:37:04,650
Once again, thanks for listening.