In a remote Kyrgyz village, Beshkempir, an infant foundling, is taken in by five older women and later adopted by a couple unable to bear children of their own. Fast forward to his early teenage years, a pubescent Beshkempir is faced with all the problems of crushing on girls and courtship, reconciling with friends and dealing with death in the family. Above all he questions his place in the world as an adoptee.
Priyomnyy Syn, Приёмный сын, Бешкемпир, Der Fremde Sohn, Le fils adoptif, 吉尔吉斯少年行
Switzerland
Locarno Film Festival
Canada
Toronto International Film Festival
Czechia
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
France
Canada
Czechia
France
Switzerland
Bursts of color punctuate this b&w film in a way that seems like something trying to escape. It captures vibrant human endeavors and natural wonders in rare moments between the grey haze of adolescence, which has its own wonders despite the emotional turmoil that propels the young titular character from mischief to conflict to the nascence of adulthood. As a coming-of-age story, this film presents a sympathetic figure whose awakening is in part triggered by a misperception of his status among peers and family.
The idea that we sometimes craft our own Othering is not without some merit. While it's true that there's a significant amount of exclusion created by any difference, significant or not, often times our perception of…
a review described Beshkempir as a poetic film and that seems to be the most accurate description. It's the second I've seen this week about boys coming of age in some way but they didn't have much in common.
Beshkempir is a foundling raised by an elderly couple (though it seems lots of other women help too) in a rural area. The film follows him playing with mates (including building a woman out of sand to shag which was weird and weirdly beautiful), scrapping with them, doing chores, and noticing a girl. It's all shot beautifully although I didn't agree with the choice to have most of the film in black and white and only moments in colour. The colour…
Wow, Kyrgyzstan never looked so good. Outrageously fine haircut and bird and grandmas and movie theater and customs and hats and boys and girls goofing in the rural hood and bicycles and big trout and fresh white sheets drying "on the line" and Mongol genes and black and white and color (depending) film stocks and superior director's eye and superior DP capabilities and magnetic pull from shots which kept reminding me of John Ford (minus Monument Valley) and tenderness and coming-of-age and bees being fucked with and character-building and familial security and an early teen gamut of emotions and some form of international realism which passes well beyond the Steppes and rugged mountains of central Asia to the Collective Unconscious…
Squarcio di vita incorporato col sonoro del mondo.
L' umano sviluppo procede mentre la natura sussurrante si agita come un luogo di scoperta del proprio essere, Beshkempir progedisce ,nella narrazione ritmata dal tempo che si dilegua, esplorante dei vari aspetti della crescità personale da infante a uomo compiuto:il gioco,la sessualitá,la morte e la rinascita dal buio di uno sbocciante e cristallino amore sincero.
Poetico nella sua semplice complessitá di interrompere il tempo,fermarlo per farci assorbire il racconto e tornare nuovamente,per un breve periodo,alla spensieratezza dei giorni perduti.
2024 Asian Cinema Challenge Week 32 - Cinema of Central Asia
Beshkempir is a short, sweet, Kyrgyz coming-of-age film with a strong visual style and some universally resonant moments despite its specific cultural focus. Devoid of superfluous dialogue and with an almost poetic style of visual storytelling, the film is straightforward, and all the more successful for it. The transitions between black-and-white and colour highlight some beautiful thematic motifs, but they do make me wish that the whole film was shot in colour. Kyrgyz cinema is pretty new to me, the only other Kyrgyzfilm production I'd seen prior to this was Larisa Shepitko's Heat, a great film from an underrated director I really enjoy, but it came from an outsiders…
A simple bildungsroman turns into a great masterpiece of love and belonging. This overlooked film is a great introduction if one's up to look into the world of Central Asian steppes.
Nostalgic for all its good and bad reasons. But that's how one's childhood goes. Would look back retrospectively for all the good reasons but wouldn't wanna live through it again.
PS: Seeing an old hindi film within this was surprising and pleasent
One boy’s awkward adolescence in rural Kyrgyzstan as a gorgeously lyrical slice of life. A kind of earthly poetry dominates; the sound of birdsong and the feeling of mud on one’s skin, bodies covered in dust from a burst of rambunctious play (a coarse materialism Abdykalykov playfully literalizes when Beshkempir and his friends create a human figure out of dirt and tentatively practice whatever they imagine fucking might be). Brief pillow shots in color intrude on Beshkempir’s black-and-white world, like glimpses of the world around him coming to life the more his confused sensibilities awaken. “His heart senses things. He’s at that age when life is going berserk!” If the plot ultimately coalesces around the revelations of Beshkempir’s identity, it’s just as one more element to be added to the film’s playful, patient interest in the textures and sensations of life itself.
The last scene was painfully nostalgic.
An interesting coming-of-age film, and although I dislike the film’s flippant attitude to the toxic behavior the boys grow up exhibiting, I still think it’s incredibly strong and poignant. If I was less sleep-deprived, I would probably have something intelligent to say about the bird metaphor throughout this movie, but I suppose that will be for someone else to point out.
Aktan Arym Kubat directs an 82 minute drama film about the day to day of a teenage adopted central Asian boy.
There's a big event near the end here that is part of what I don't think anyone will call a BIG film, I'm not sure the film is long enough to make that hit as hard as it should.
This works as a kind of funny at times coming of age film which you'd call fairly innocent and gets how dumb teenagers can actually be.
But with any film from the steppes, though this one especially you're watching this for things like the shot of the dusty sand, the field, that shot of the river or a mountain, him…
Life becomes complicated for a Kyrgyzstani teenager when he suddenly discovers that he was adopted in this coming-of-age drama. The film has a fair share of memorable scenes as he swims with his friends, tries to pick up girls and builds a sandcastle style girl which he and his friends take turns dry humping. The meat of the plot though is in his discovery that he was adopted - and as such a pivotal plot point, this might have been better introduced a third of the way in, rather than well into the movie's second half. As it is, we get little of him wrestling with what the new knowledge means to him. The protagonist does get some pretty strong scenes with a funeral near the end, but none of the lollygagging of the first half gives the young lead actor much chance to leave an impression. There are also occasional bursts of colour that feel completely random and jarring.
