Calling Tulpan a documentary-style narrative is a disservice to its potential audience. This is a wonderful, enjoyable movie. Sure, it has its deep and complex aspect too, but one can watch it as an entertaining comedy without any loss of details. For the most part, the narrative moves well, thanks to the excellently acted lead who plays a naive herdsman-wannabe. He just wants a wife, so he could acquire a flock of livestock, to live his dream of riding a donkey and grazing sheep.
As with most movies on nomadic live, the visuals lovingly capture the beauty and brutality of this remote region of Kazakhstan. What really sets this movie apart from others is the audible effects. There's no soundtrack, but I don't think there was one second of silence in this movie. Sounds of wind, sand, radio, music, singing, and most of all, livestock: sheep, goats, donkeys, and camels -- boy are camels noisy. I also love the scenes of family lives: little boy riding a broomstick as a horse, sometimes beating his sister and brother with it; young girl singing loudly outside the yurt with all her might as she's upset; and young boy memorizes news from the radio, reciting it to his father after a hard day's work. Combining these two elements, the movie made a big impression on me.
There are some negative elements. The young girl sings so much that a few times I want to smack her. The movie also drags somewhat in the middle, though for the sake of a payoff later on. And, yeah, there's a lot of really ugly-looking sheep in the movie.
Note: This was Kazakhstan's official submission to the 2009 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. It didn't make it as a finalist. The one they submit the year before, Mongol, did but I like Tulpan far better. Actually, Mongol was a pretty forgettable movie.
