THE RIVER (Kazakh: Ozen) is the third and final film in Emir Baigazin’s trilogy centred around the nature of childhood and the transformation into adulthood. His previous two films HARMONY LESSONS (Kazakh: Асланның сабақтары) and THE WOUNDED ANGEL (Kazakh: Жаралы періште) have won him international acclaim, especially in art-house and auteur circles. Biagazin seems to like control over his own work; often writing, directing and shooting his films and developing, in consequence, a particular and remarkable style.
Watching THE RIVER is a profoundly unsettling and uncomfortable experience, and the film gives you a lot to digest afterwards. The storyline feels as unrelenting and unpredictable as the river upon which much of its metaphorical power is focused. Five brothers live in rural isolation with their strangely absent parents. At first they play inventive games which they learnt from their father but when their father beats them for not working hard enough, they rapidly stop acting like children altogether. The brothers discover a swiftly moving river and begin to visit it more often, swimming even though the current is strong.
“Watching THE RIVER is a profoundly unsettling and uncomfortable experience, and the film gives you a lot to digest afterwards.”
THE RIVER is set in a mudbrick homestead in rural Kazakhstan, everything is sparse and for a large part of the film you are unsure what time period the action is taking place. Each brother wears an identical attire of brown coarse cloth which looks poorly made. Baigazin introduces the outside world – and specifically technology – in the form of a wealthy cousin who enters on a segway and carries a tablet. The brothers’ natures change with his arrival and jealousy begins to corrupt their once harmonious relationship.
The actions of these five brothers throughout the film is strange, almost trancelike; strictly choreographed movements are repeated and copied. One brother will lie down on a sand-dune and, gradually, another and another will join him until all five lie in the sun, a little crooked, like bodies.
“The actions of these five brothers throughout the film is strange, almost trancelike; strictly choreographed movements are repeated and copied.”
The shots which Baigazin uses are all long and stationary and appear more like individual pieces of art in the way they are carefully arranged. Each time the brothers set out to swim across the river, for instance, they are pulled diagonally across the screen by the current. The river is always shown flowing in the same direction and the boys always swim diagonally.
Being within the art-house sphere, THE RIVER has a strong metaphorical element, and a lot of its images are built to reference an overall message. When Baigazin talked to Cineuropa about his inspiration for THE RIVER in September of last year, he remembered how he himself would visit a river in his adolescence, and that he sought to make a film about this experience. THE RIVER is a semi-dreamlike recollection of childhood, a transcendental narrative about growing up, accepting responsibility and experiencing guilt, greed and shame for the first time. The river itself symbolises a current that cannot be defied: the inevitable passage of time and the loss of innocence.
THE RIVER screens again at Glasgow Film Festival on February 24th, 14:00 at the CCA.