Chyorniy, Chyorniy Chelovek (2019)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 130 minuten
Alternative title: A Dark, Dark Man
Country:
Kazakhstan / France
Directed by: Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Stars: Daniyar Alshinov, Dinara Baktybayeva and Teoman Khos
IMDb score:
6,9 (550)
Releasedate: 14 October 2020
This movie is not available on US streaming services.
Chyorniy, Chyorniy Chelovek plot
A boy is killed in a Kazakh village. Detective Bekzat wants to quickly end the investigation. A culprit is found by local police officers. When a journalist comes from the city, however, things turn out differently. Now, for the first time in his career, Bekzat must conduct a real procedural investigation.
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Paalhaas
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- 1582 messages
- 2570 votes
What a pleasant surprise this Kazakh film was! I went into it with few expectations, but this is one of the best movies I've seen in ages. Because I think this film deserves more viewers, I want to devote a little prose to it.
A child is found dead in a barn and a mentally challenged man who happens to be nearby comes in handy for the local authorities to designate as a scapegoat. Yerzhanov takes us to a world where lawlessness reigns, corruption is rampant and no one, including the main character, seems to feel the slightest bit morally encumbered to facilitate it. Most of the characters populating Karatas in Kazakhstan seem to be little familiar with the concept of "human rights". @Querelle puts into words how over-the-top the corruption and amorality is: "[Yerzhanov] exaggerates it, but somehow you get the eerie suspicion that it's not that exaggerated at all".
Yerzhanov succeeds on several levels in allowing the film to rise above the clichéd nature of the social indictment.
Firstly because of the stylization: a cohesive visual language of (mostly) tableaux vivants that give the film a unique face. It also makes the story more universal, place and time seem to blur, so to speak. Comparisons with authors such as Parajanov and Andersson are not inconceivable in that respect.
What also works very well is the continuous, artful and often also comical juxtaposition of the games of the children and the intellectually disabled scapegoat (the journalist also regularly participates) with the shockingly amoral behavior of actually all adult men in the film.
Many scenes do well without dialogue (take the opening scene, for example), but the dialogues that the film has are often completely spot on.
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