The Adikhan Yerzhanov written and directed Steppenwolf was like a Kazakh version of Mad Max. Both films appear set in a dystopian nightmarish future where law and order have completely collapsed, and both feature complex anti-heroes. By good fortune, I am currently learning Russian, so for me, it was fun to recognise a whole bunch of words that the characters speak!
Steppenwolf takes place in a nihilistic and dystopian world, one where it appears that in the relatively recent past there was an event that led to an uprising, with the common folk and criminals alike coming together to wipe out the local police force. During an assault on a police station by a bunch of armed men, a very traumatised woman - Tamara (Anna Starchenko) stumbles in and happens upon a former detective, Brajyuk (Berik Aytzhanov). Within her incoherent mumbling the man realises she is looking for her missing son. Using his natural confidence and leadership, he ingratiates himself with the rebels and convinces them to help him find Tamara's son, promising that there is a big cash reward for doing so. It becomes clear that Brajyuk wants to find the missing boy for his own reasons, with it revealed that his family were murdered by the man responsible for the boy's abduction.
This is a very stylish film, and while in my earlier review this week of A Hard Place, I criticised it for being a bit too stylish, here that didn't get in the way of my appreciation of this at all. The film world is never explained, it starts with the country already fallen into anarchy, and there is no resolution to that aspect. Instead, this is a simpler story that takes place within that film world. Max in the Mad Max films may have been a bit deranged, but there was a compassionate side to him that often saw him helping the good people he came across. Aytzhanov's Brajyuk is an extreme anti-hero, someone who is prepared to go to any lengths to get the information he needs, and who has an extreme nihilistic approach to life. Truth be told, he is a bit of a psycho, but has some charm to him. He appears forever in an amused mood, and doesn't really take much of life seriously. He is also a cold blooded killer who has no problem killing innocents, seemingly for his own amusement. One scene has him telling a man to continue playing the instrument he was playing prior to Brajyuk shooting another man. He does so, only to then be shot dead. Another scene has a woman begging for her life, with Brajyuk letting her go when she says she has children. She doesn't get far however before he pulls out a gun and shoots her in the back. On the one hand some of his craziness was understandable, but on the other he was often shown being needlessly cruel, even to Tamara.
Due to her permanently dazed state she is hard to communicate with, the lead protagonist's method of dealing with her then is to slap her or push her, or even take the mick out of her requests. She was a fascinating character, both leads in fact were amazing cast choices. I loved how detached Tamara was, not reacting to all the bloodshed and mayhem going on about her, even just standing in the middle of large gun fights without flinching, or being aware of the danger around her.
The interactions between these characters was one of the film's highlights. You never get a strong feeling of Brajyuk's real thoughts towards her, using her time and time again, but he also seems to grudgingly look out for her, recognising her innocence underneath her insanity.
There is lots of death to be found in Steppenwolf. There is an almost road-trip type feel to the film as the two leads track down the missing boy. Elements of El Mariachi snuck into this, with key battles being rather subdued and over quickly. There are lots and lots of gun fights, a few scenes of torture, and plenty of cinematic vistas of dusty deserts and burnt out cars. It leads up to a rather tepid finale. I did like this part also, but the last ten minutes of this hundred minute thriller really slowed the pace down to a snails crawl, and an ending that I found a bit confusing truth be told. Keeping the anarchic film together was a great soundtrack that featured some lovely eighties sounding synth tracks, really worked well with the sublime looking scenes.
Steppenwolf was a great thriller. I loved the Mad Max current-apocalyptic vibe that it carried with it, and I appreciated that even though the two leads were a very weird duo, they had a strong onscreen presence to them, especially the eccentric Brajyuk. This is a thriller very well worth seeing, don't let the foreign language put you off as this has style in spades. It may be style over substance, but what style it was! Steppenwolf will be available to stream exclusively on ARROW and to own on limited edition Blu-ray from 26th May.
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