- Director: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
- Writer: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
- Stars: Anna Starchenko, Birek Aitzhanov
REVIEW
Playing at the Fantasia International Film Festival, Steppenwolf from prolific Kazakhstan director Adilkhan Yerzhanov is a balls-out Western that asks questions about revenge, justice, and if the two ever meet properly.
In a seemingly lawless area, Tamara (Starchenko) searches for her missing son in a violent town. She hires a morally questionable ex-detective Brajyuk (Aitzhanov) to help find him. He is a sadistic asshole, but his methods get results, and Tamara is determined to find her son.
Tamara comes across as someone who is either suffering from mental health or is neurodiverse. However, in truth, it is more likely that she is traumatised from the world she is living through, shellshocked, doing what she has to do to survive and losing her son is the last straw. Starchenko is magnificent here, playing Tamara, with an undercurrent of sweetness but also quiet, fierce determination. Brajyuk is, to put it simply, a psychopath. How he came to be this way is hinted at throughout the film, but Aitzhanov manages to imbue this psycho with a real quirky swagger. Like John McClane but if he was part of Hans Gruber’s crew. These two don’t really work well together but they do make such an interesting on-screen pair.
Yerzhanov has created a very bleak world, one that only understands violence. There is only self-protection, self-interest and survival. As Tamara and Brajyuk navigate across the barren landscape, it becomes apparent that the only way to survive is to eliminate everyone else. Brajyuk employs his various methods as he kills his way through to the destination.
Cinematographer Yerkinbek Ptyraliyev captures the beauty in the bleak landscape and whether it is a close, intimate indoor shot or a vast wide shot of the landscape, he manages to get it just right and in conjunction with Yerzhanov, it is such a good mix, pushing the audience through this Western revenge story.
A beautifully acted but ultimately very sad film, Steppenwolf shows us what happens when humanity is abandoned. A gritty and bloody tale of vengeance, that is not an easy watch, but it is well worth it.
Played at the Fantasia International Film Festival
Ryan Morrissey-Smith
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