KissEnglishPasto ...........................................................from Pasto,Colombia...Via: L.A. CA., CALI, COLOMBIA....and ORLANDO, FL *** This review may contain spoilers ***If you don't know what TULPAN means in English, you will after watching the film. And yet, they never translate it for you...You have to figure it out for yourself! Sometimes, unfortunately, it seems that particular talent is fast becoming a lost art among U.S. movie-goers. Take a film like TULPAN, which is so simple, so unpretentious, and yet, manages to show us things in life that are so delicate and complicated! ***May Contain a Minor Spoiler or Two!*** What motivated me to give TULPAN a look? Certainly not the IMDb Blurb, it really misses the mark! No, my decision was based on a truly accurate, quality review. Originality is something to be prized and praised in a movie. You know how rare it is to encounter a film with something totally original to offer. TULPAN has at least 5 elements that I don't recall seeing in any other cinematic work! Without them, 6 or 7* more than likely would have been my rating...But I'll add 1/2* for each original element, bringing my rating up to 9*. So, What are these elements? 1) ALL the actors in TULPAN appear using their REAL names! Maybe you're thinking you've seen a few other films like that. Well, in ALL the others I remember like this, the production values are horrific and the acting worse. Here the acting is so natural, so oblivious to the camera, it lends a "Slice of life" feel to the production.2) Have seen movies in dozens of different languages! Kazak is not one of them. So, TULPAN is my first in this language related to Turkish.3)Have you ever seen mouth-to-mouth respiration administered to a newborn calf in a movie? Not just once, but several times by two different actors! Elements 4) and 5)....? Let's keep the last two elements a surprise. (Although my alternate title above should give you a hint.) Sheep-herding on the Asian Steppe is anything but exciting. TULPAN REALLY drives that point home. If you're not willing to sit through movies where the pacing is, at times, excruciatingly deliberate, but that reward you in the end for your patience...This is not for you. If you like windows into new and exotic cultures, check TULPAN out! 9* STARS*.....ENJOY/DISFRUTELA! Any comments, questions or observations, in English or Español, are most welcome!

Red-125 Tulpan (2008) was directed and co-written by Sergei Dvortsevoy. This film was co- produced in five different countries, but filmed primarily on the Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan. The movie is basically about unrequited love, but it has the feel of a documentary. (Tulpan is one of those movies where the first thing you do when you return home is to check out its country of origin in Wikipedia!)Boiled down to basics, the film is about Asa, who has returned home to Kazakhstan after serving in the Russian navy. Now he wants to find a wife and settle down to the nomadic life style that apparently still exists in this harsh and unforgiving landscape.Asa loves the beautiful Tulpan, whom he has barely glimpsed and we never see. While he is courting her he lives with his sister, her husband, and their three children. Asa apparently was a good sailor, but he's not really adept at the skills needed for life on the steppes. His brother-in-law wants him to leave, his sister wants him to stay, and Asa can't decide what he wants to do, or even what he'll be able to do.I know very little about life lived in a yurt on the Asian grasslands. As this life is portrayed in the movie, it's not meant for dreamers or amateurs. People speak of the harsh beauty of the landscape, but I don't see it. (Well, I see the harsh part, but not the beauty. To me it looks cold, dusty, dry, windy, and forbidding.) Our species is very adaptable, and it's no surprise that a lifestyle has evolved that allows humans to survive in this environment. Whether Asa will choose that lifestyle, and whether he will survive it if he does choose it, are at the heart of the plot.At the heart of the movie are the images of the Steppes of Central Asia, and the few rugged people who live there.

mmunier For our group it was our 3rd visit to this "area", and out of the four of us, three found it was one too many. A few years back we started with "The Weeping Camel", having reasonably enjoyed it later on we also saw "The cave of the yellow dog" (I hope I got those titles right!) Then "Tulpan" came with such raving reviews that we had to see it too. Well we did and it was a little like a sentence. I couldn't say it was like watching grass growing for the obvious reason (no this is not a spoiler!) Usually though I enjoy revisiting places I "have been" before but somehow it did not work anymore for me this time.... and now this is THE SPOILER: it was not much different than the two previously mentioned stories. That's it - how long can you watch people living in a confine area where very little happens. Yes the panorama has something, yes it's poetic but no it's not for me anymore.When I read some of the reviews here or elsewhere I think of a funny event that happened at a local market where a man was demonstrating a gadget to get your car running at a high performance with little fuel. It was amazing and very convincing with a huge running engine being part of the demonstration. I did buy two of these gadgets! As I continued to wander about the market I bumped in something even more amazing...The same person was now demonstrating potato peelers and with the same verbal "dexterity"!Now, this could be another spoiler... There was a certain goat that made me ponder whether it could have had some very symbolic representations and made me feel that perhaps we, as an audience, were the subject of some of these representation. Perhaps it's safer to go and see some movies without reading too much about or keep a check on expectation. Perhaps it could be wise to check one's mood as well on the day if you have reason to believe that it could affect your perception. But first timers you should enjoy it because it still is special mm

Howard Schumann Winner of the Un Certain Regard award this year at the Cannes Film Festival, the fast disappearing world of nomadic sheep herders in Kazakhstan is dramatized in the part fictional, part documentary film Tulpan. Directed by Sergei Dvortsevoy, Tulpan is the story of an ex-sailor seeking to marry the only available woman in the area to fulfill his dream of tending his own flock. The narrative, however, is secondary to the dramatic on-camera birth of a lamb and the spectacular scenery of the steppes. Much of the film takes place in the tent house called a yurt that is shared by Asa (Askhat Kuchinchirekov), his brother-in-law Ondas (Ondasyn Besikbasov), his older sister Samal (Samal Yeslyamova), and three children.The smallest boy is an absolute delight running and shouting as he plays with sticks and his pet turtle. His older brother has the uncanny knack of repeating the news broadcasts he hears on the radio word for word, reciting recites them daily to a curious Ondas. The only shrill note in the film is the constant high-pitched singing of Asa's niece Maha (Mahabbat Turganbayeva) who sings the same drone-like folk song six or seven times. As the film opens, Asa, his best friend Boni (Tulepbergen Baisakalov), and Ondas visit the family of Tulpan, a young woman whom they want Asa to marry. In southern Kazakhstan, the terrain is so forbidding that a herdsman must have a wife to do the chores while he tends his sheep and Ondas considers Asa too irresponsible and immature to be a herdsman without a wife.At the family gathering (Tulpan is not present) Asa makes up stories about his adventures in the Russian navy and how he fought an octopus in a life and death struggle. Tulpan's parents, however, are unimpressed and later tell Asa that their daughter (who is never seen in the film) has rejected him because his ears are too big. How she might have known that is not made clear but it leads to a comic comparison of Asa's ears to a picture of Prince Charles. Discouraged, Asa threatens to leave the steppe and move to the city with Boni but is reluctant to give up either his dream of marrying Tulpan or learning about animal husbandry.As Asa tries to prove himself to Ondas whose herd of sheep is plagued by a series of mysterious deaths, he assists in the birthing of a lamb and meets his severest test. Tulpan is a natural showcase for the region and Cinematographer Joly Dylewska captures the swirling dust and the stark landscape with striking success. One of the best scenes is that of a bandaged camel placed in a motorcycle sidecar by a veterinarian (Esentai Tulendiev) while the mother paces in the background. Not a dry National Geographic Special, Tulpan has ethnic and pop music, adorable children, moments of wicked humor, and an unforced naturalism that is captivating.