IFFR24 REVIEW: Дала қасқыры [Steppenwolf] [2024]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 102 minutes
Release Date: August 15th, 2024 (Kazakhstan)
Studio: Blue Finch Films Releasing
Director(s): Adilkhan Yerzhanov
Writer(s): Adilkhan Yerzhanov

Is there any need for good?

If it were up to Berіk Aitzhanov’s character—a man who demands to never be called by the only name he speaks as being his own—Adіlkhan Yerzhanov’s Steppenwolf would be the consummate nihilistic journey through Hell in search of vengeance. Unfortunately for him, however, this is not a journey that he’s able to take alone. Incarcerated for five years, in which he’s made the belief that “good isn’t necessary for life” his mantra, escape comes at the hands of a barely coherent mother in distress (Anna Starchenko’s Tamara). Numb to the chaos of riots and gunplay that she slowly walks through unscathed, she releases Aitzhanov under the promise that he’ll help find her kidnapped son.

It’s a match made in comedic heaven despite the dark and brutal world housing them. He’s a sadistic maniac with zero qualms about torturing or killing whoever crosses his path. She stammers and sleepwalks with nothing but her boy’s name on her lips unless Aitzhanov gets her smiling with childish peek-a-boo games or sharp slaps to the face. Tamara is dead inside with the potential her son has already been torn apart for the organ trade, so Aitzhanov is able to do whatever he wants in front of her as long as he returns to the mission. And since the man who has her child is also the man who killed his own, their missions are one and the same.

I’m not being entirely glib when I mention the comedy. I laughed out loud a few times during Steppenwolf and I’m certain Yerzhanov intended for me to do so. That’s how unhinged Aitzhanov’s character and performance are. He’s mocking men as they plead for their lives despite kneeling at gunpoint beside them. He’s playing with his soon-to-be victims like one would play with his food—absentmindedly making them believe they’re safe before boredom takes their last breath without remorse. Because he’s just as dead inside as Tamara; she just still holds onto hope that she’ll be reunited with the person she loves most. She feels fear for him (not for herself) while Aitzhanov fears nothing since he has nothing more to lose.

The resulting blood-soaked western isn’t the fastest paced film you’ll see, but it’s also never uninteresting. Most of that is Aitzhanov delivering an unforgettable antihero who’s unbothered by morality and a script that lets him run wild, but it’s also the intrigue born from the uncertainty about whether Starchenko’s Tamara is unable to gather herself and help physically or emotionally. She starts becoming more lucid the closer they get to their destination (and the more Aitzhanov wakes her with violent impatience), but the threat of losing her to melancholy never disappears. Neither does his psychopathy despite eventually breaking down to tell her (and us) his story.

How far will she go to save her son? How far will he fall to repay the horrors done to him? The answer to both questions is “as far as necessary,” and that means using the other to accomplish their goals. Don’t therefore expect to find them becoming friends or finding vulnerability. Don’t expect them to try and save the other at the expense of their own wellbeing. They’re merely on the same road together rather than together upon that road. If she gets shot, he’ll walk over her corpse and continue forward. If he gets shot, she’ll simply start mumbling about her son to a world of deaf ears again. Their success hinges on fate alone.