Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Bauryna Salu’ Review: Kazakhstan’s Oscar Entry Captures a Child’s Abandonment
“Bauryna Salu” is a rare, naturalistic gem that one can experience in two wildly different modes. The first involves going in completely cold — no pun intended — and observing the understated drama of its frigid, nomadic setting. The second involves experiencing its intricacies through the eyes of 12-year-old protagonist Yersultan (an impeccable Yersultan Yerman), which requires little more than a glance at its synopsis, or a glimpse at the blink-and-you’ll-miss it translation of its Kazakh-language title as the movie opens. The tradition to which “Bauryna Salu” refers, and which enhances one’s understanding of the underlying story, is only explicitly depicted near the end. Along the way, its most visceral and intimate effects trickle out with a stunning commitment to cinematic realism. The result is a remarkable sleight of hand — a film in which every emotional possibility is broached, even when nothing seems to happen.
Raised by his elderly grandmother (Bigaysha Salkyn) in a rural village, Yersultan works hard, toiling away to extract salt from evaporation ponds, or harvesting ice (that is, when he isn’t helping her out at home). Writer-director Askhat Kuchinchirekov paints a vivid portraiture of the young adolescent’s daily life, captured through moments of both cheer and resentment. In one moment, Yersultan is playfully accosted by his best friend Damir (Damir Daurenuly), as the duo catch-up and argue while roughhousing in lengthy takes — the closest the movie comes to allowing its young characters a sense of energetic freedom. In subsequent scenes, Yersultan can be seen daydreaming, or waking up in the middle of the night — low-light scenes captured with visual noise, imbuing quiet moments with magnetism — as a withheld dissatisfaction washes over him.
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For those initially unaware of the movie’s premise, the source of Yersultan’s malaise remains mysterious until a dramatic turn shortly into the movie, when his father (Aidos Auesbay), mother (Dinara Shymyrbay) and younger brother (Yerkin Berikuly) suddenly arrive, and reluctantly whisk him away to their home several towns away. The movie’s title refers to a long-standing nomadic tradition — also known as “nebere aluu” — in which a family’s first-born is given away to be raised by a relative. This norm once took advantage of large families in tight-knit communities, but has persisted even as people have travelled and migrated, imbuing its very nature with an unspoken cruelty.
Kuchinchirekov was the victim of such a tradition as well, making “Bauryna Salu” a particularly self-reflexive work that the filmmaker scores with environmental sounds rather than a musical score, making it feel, at times, like a memory. However, he avoids the temptation to sermonize in order to exorcize his demons. Instead, he employs a documentarian lens to his dramatic staging, allowing the bonds and emotional chasms between his characters to play out in self-evident ways, through behaviors and body-language rather than dialogue. The result is stunningly true to life, locking characters like Yersultan and his father in what seems like a perpetual Cold War as they work the family’s farm — a festering conflict with no solution beyond silent stewing, and the breeding of contempt as the patriarch shows more tenderness towards the family’s horses than his own children.
Yerman, in his leading role, delivers an utterly spellbinding performance, whether in complete silence and isolation, or in the rare moments Yersultan succumbs to various pressures at home and at school, and lets loose his stewing rage. More than an exploration of the custom at whose mercy Kuchinchirekov was raised, “Bauryna Salu” navigates the emotional labyrinth that arose in its wake, chipping away at the stone-faced façade Yersultan is forced to adopt, until it comes crumbling down.
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