The recipient of the Sutherland Trophy for the most original and imaginative first feature screened at the London Film Festival in 2008, Sergei Dvortsevoy is an engaging, measured and thoughtful filmmaker. Having previously worked as a documentarian, Tulpan expanded that sensibility into the fictional world of a young man determined to marry the eponymous heroine but finding himself quietly rebuffed at every turn. Touchingly sentimental, wry and insightful it’s a fully realised and mature piece of work from the 47-year-old director, who spoke exclusively to LWLies.
LWLies: Tulpan is a film that displays a natural sympathy for the people of the Kazakh countryside and the landscape itself. Is this born of personal experience?
Dvortsevoy: In a way, yes. I was born in Kazakhstan, I lived there for 28 years and I made two documentaries there. I had many ideas because it’s my past, it’s my childhood and I worked there also at an aviation college before filmmaking. I know this place very well – the Kazakh countryside, the people, shepherds, how they live, this type of life – and it’s interesting for me.
LWLies: One of the most interesting aspects of the film is the balance of power between the genders. On the one hand the society is very patriarchal but the film revolves around the fact that a woman has the power to say ‘no’.
Dvortsevoy: Kazakhstan is a Muslim country, but they’re not so religious. Kazakh people were nomads in the past – used to living alone – and when people live alone they are not so much religious. They believe in rain, in nature, all these things. In Tulpan, this girl is silent, she doesn’t say many things, but at the same time you feel that she is always very important, she is the centre of this family. In almost every Kazakh family the female is in the shadows somewhere but at the same time she leads. They say that all Kazakh women keep the balance in the family.
LWLies: Were you conscious of striking a balance between the harshness of the environment and its beauty?
Dvortsevoy: Of course, otherwise it’s too strong, too tough of a life. I don’t consider life just like hell. Life is paradise and hell at the same time. One of my creative tasks was to show the beauty of this life despite all this emptiness.
LWLies: Did the austerity of the landscape present specific challenges during filming?
Dvortsevoy: First of all this is an international production, there are five countries involved – we started with some French sound engineers, with Polish camera crew and some more people, like Russians. Then I realised that I had to cut the crew because it was so hard. It’s an isolated place, 500 kilometres from a city, it’s very far and for people it was very hard. At first when we started the crew was happy because it’s the Kazakhstan steppe and they see spiders, some birds, nice flowers, but then within two weeks it got to be difficult because it is an isolated place, it’s windy, dusty, everything. So then I decided to cut people and eventually I had just 15 people.
LWLies: There are moments in the film when long takes capture something real and organic, often with the animals. Does that strike at the essence of your work?
Dvortsevoy: I like film when I feel that there is some surprise that I cannot explain, that I cannot calculate. Calculation is good but you feel immediately this calculation when the director follows the script. They lead you. For me it’s not so interesting. Animals are fantastic on film. The danger is that actors can be weaker than animals because it’s difficult to achieve the same level of truth. Animals, they don’t lie. They’re organic every second. So I said, ‘Listen, we have to realise and understand. We have to achieve the same quality, the same truth; that means we will fight for this.’ We made a lot of rehearsals for many scenes.
LWLies: How was it working with the non-professional actors?
Dvortsevoy: The young boy was like an animal on the film! We could not rehearse with him because he was two-and-a-half-years-old and he was unpredictable. We worked with him like an animal. When we rehearsed something inside the yurt it’s a tiny space and it’s very difficult to move the camera. So we rehearsed everything, we trained with people, all the movement, but I asked my assistants to play with him outside. I told them, ‘Don’t rehearse with him, just play.’ Then when we were ready they just opened the doors and he was like a lion in a cage in the circus.
LWLies: What do you think of some of the ex-Soviet countries like Hungary, Poland and Kazakhstan finally putting their own stories on screen through their own national film infrastructures? Do you think they’re failing to say something distinctive and instead copying Hollywood?
Dvortsevoy: In Kazakhstan and in new Russia many directors want to make Hollywood films but at the same time they have strong cinema, culture and literary traditions. There are still many directors who want to tell stories their own way. It’s strange, you know, every year you see new directors who want to make something differently, to find their own way and of course to tell their stories, new stories about new lives after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I see that in almost every former Soviet Union country and this is good but I think they should understand that only in this way can they be interesting, otherwise it’s just like a secondary Hollywood.
