Tarkovsky meets Tarantino in Steppenwolf, the latest compellingly bleak snapshot of life in the badlands of Eurasia from prolific Kazakh writer-director Adilkhan Yerzhanov. Set in some lawless backwater that only partially resembles the real Kazakhstan, this lightly philosophical revenge thriller pays self-conscious homage to classic westerns and samurai movies. Visually striking and beautifully shot, it feels like a grander undertaking than usual from the low-key indie auteur behind The Gentle Indifference of the World (2018), Yellow Cat (2020) and Assault (2022). A credit for Ukrainian producer Alexander Rodnyansky, best known for his work with Oscar-nominated Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev, may point to a gear change in scale and ambition.
Steppenwolf is also one of Yerzhanov’s darkest works to date, dialling down his signature tragicomic absurdist humour and significantly upping the body count. World premiering in Rotterdam this week, this wild ride from the Wild East is low on character nuance or narrative logic, but it should have broad crossover potential from art-house audiences to open-minded genre fans. The director’s strong track record in Cannes, Venice, San Sebastian and elsewhere should also open doors to further festival screenings after IFFR.
As with all his work, Yerzhanov sprinkles Steppenwolf with references to canonical literature and cinema. He borrows the title from Swiss-German author Herman Hesse’s 1927 novel about a man in the depths of an existential crisis, which he also quotes over the opening credits. But John Ford and Howard Hawks are more obvious influences here. The director describes his latest film as “The Searchers with a psychopath at the centre of the plot,” and even includes direct visual homages to Ford’s 1956 frontier classic. There are stylistic echoes of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah here too, in the unflinching depiction of a purgatorial cosmos dominated by machismo, venality and violence.
Steppenwolf opens with an arresting image of blood-smeared riot shields, the aftermath of a battle between police and protestors. The rioters are then dragged to a remote police outpost and tortured into signing fake confessions. These scenes allude heavily to “Bloody January”, a series of violent street protest against spiralling prices, poverty and government corruption that swept Kazakhstan in 2022, leading to a brutal crackdown backed by Russian troops. The regime used lethal force and “shoot to kill” orders against the uprising, which left 227 people dead and saw thousands arrested. Predictably, Vladimir Putin sided with the Kazakh authorities, dismissing the protest as an attempted coup backed by foreign enemies.
But Yerzhanov is clearly not making a straight historical or political drama with Steppenwolf, merely building on recent events in his homeland to fashion a more allegorical, stylised, quasi-mythical backdrop. The setting here more closely resembles some kind of deeply entrenched civil war in a depopulated hellscape where rule of law has broken down, reminiscent of the Old West but also of post-apocalyptic thrillers like the Mad Max series.
Driving the narrative are two mismatched characters with overlapping motives. Braiyuk (an appealingly gruff Berik Aitzhanov) is a deeply cynical detective and trigger-happy killing machine, who seems entirely devoid of empathy or moral limitations. An anti-hero with heavy emphasis on the anti, Braiyuk has no qualms about torturing or murdering anyone in his path, often cracking tasteless jokes between bloodbaths. After cheating death during an assault on his police compound, Braiyuk spots an opportunity in the form of Tamara (Anna Starchenko), a mentally fragile young mother whose son has been kidnapped by widely feared local crime boss Taha, apparently with nefarious intentions.
While Tamara seeks only to deliver the boy from evil, Braiyuk has less noble motives, consumed by a long-standing revenge mission against Taha which only comes into focus midway through the film. Though this deranged cop is brazenly using her, the religiously devout Tamara still insists he is a good man deep down. He scoffs as her naive sentimentality, arguing that goodness is not “necessary” in a godless world where brute force is the only law. Even so, a kind of karmic reckoning arrives during the final spectacular showdown with Taha and his henchmen. Good does not quite triumph over evil, but tiny flickers of human kindness still survive in the nihilistic gloom.
Steppenwolf will not satisfy all tastes. Sadistic scenes of violence using hammers, fan blades, car jacks and more eventually become numbing. Braiyuk’s intermittent abuse of Tamara is uncomfortable too, and arguably superfluous to the plot. The broadly sketched main protagonists are two-dimensional at best, while secondary characters can barely muster one. All the same, taken on its own terms as an elevated neo-western noir thriller with undercurrents of social critique and savagely dark humour, this is a grimly compelling and stylish new peak from one of Kazakhstan’s most consistently interesting film-makers.
Director, screenwriter: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Cast: Berik Aitzhanov, Anna Starchenko, Azamat Nigmanov, Yerkin Gubashev, Nurbek Mukushev
Cinematography: Yerkinbek Ptyraliyev
Editing: Arif Tleuzhanov, Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Production designer: Yermek Utegenov
Music: Galymzhan Moldanazar
Producers: Aliya Mendygozhina, Alexander Rodnyansky, Olga Khlasheva, Nurym Aydingali, Maxim Akbarov
Production company: Golden Man Media (Kazakhstan)
World sales: Blue Finch Films (UK)
Venue: Rotterdam Film Festival (Big Screen Competition)
In Kazakh, Russian
102 minutes
