Kairat
Kazakhstan
1992
72 Min
Black and White
Kazakh
Synopsis
“This 34-year-old filmmaker has invented an entire universe,” wrote Jean-Michel Frodon in Le Monde, and he was right. Darezhan Omirbaev may well have been inspired by Bresson and Hitchcock, but he has indeed created his very own universe in the five films he’s made since the late 80s. The disconnected events of his films are simple – a boy travelling on a train from the steppe to the city, riding on a bus, going to a movie and brushing bare arms with his date, wandering through a train yard. But every form, every movement, every gesture seems to have found its precise poetic place, and the emotional terrain contained within his first feature feels as vast as an ocean. Kairat is the name of Omirbaev’s autobiographically inspired hero, who moves through life exactly as many of us do when we’re adolescents – awkwardly, in bewildered confusion, guarding a wealth of emotions deep within us like a buried treasure. One of the best films of the 90s. —Film Society of Lincoln Center
Director
Darezhan Omirbaev
Omirbaev was born on March 15, 1958 in the village of Uyuk, in the Djambul region of Kazakhstan. In 1980, he received a degree in applied mathematics from the University of Kazakhistan. He went on to work as a professor and programmer, and eventually an editor at Kazakh Film Studios.
In 1987, he finished his studies at VGIK (Institute of Advanced Cinema Studies in Moscow) with a thesis on cinema semiotics based on the theories of Pasolini, Metz, Jakobson and Mitry. For several years, Omirbaev worked as a film theorist and critic for the magazine New Film.
In 1992, he directed his first film Kairat, and afterward Kardiogramma (1995), Killer (1998) and The Road (2001).
Omirbaev is an exceptionally talented technician, but he is much more than just that. He handles the illusions between reality an dream with unsettling and uncanny verve. —asiaticafilmmediale.it
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Jerry Johnson
29Jan12
A delightfully sexy teenage comedy engendered in degenerate Soviet socialist infrastructure, where every woman who appears on screen is begging to be made love to in her own special way. The appeals to Bresson and Tarr in the comments are completely off the mark: this is one part Bunuel and one part Nicholas Ray.
Wu Yong likes this
adrianmendizabal
1Aug11
With deep compositions and great focus on framing, Omirbaev immersed us into the life of a mysterious character poised in the screen with poetic subservience. A look at adolescence as it would have been for Bresson, but of a newer kind. Its sparsity in aesthetics and unique method of characterization distinguishes it from many 90s films. One of the best films of the 90s for me.
Arsaib likes this
Holyphool
12May11
This is my first film from Omirbaev (thankyou so much to Gulazhar!), and I was mesmerised by the tranquil beauty of the film, which indeed did evoke memories of the great Bresson, Bela Tarr, and Murnau in its dream-like narrative on trains and trams about the lost boy in the big city looking for love. I have been taken to another place in this world that I never knew anything about....wonderful cinema!
H. K. ‡ likes this
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A Contemplative Masterpiece from Central Asia
By Chasing Butterflies on August 20, 2010
This dazzling debut feature from the Kazakh director throbs with a restless, existentialist energy. Through his complex, often symbolic mesh of imagery, Omirbayev captures a twilight zone between sleep… read review
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