‘Abel’: Busan Review

Dir/scr: Elzat Eskendir. Kazakhstan. 2024. 120mins

It’s 1993 and the Soviet Union has just collapsed, leading to aftershocks a long way from the seat of power – including in a dusty corner of Kazakhstan. That’s where Abel (Yerlan Toleutay) lives with his wife Shynar (Nurzhan Beksultanova) and large family, on a collective farm where he has worked all his life. Now the farm is to be disbanded, and the animals divided between the various members of the community. Kazakhstani director Elzat Eskendir puts the emphasis on social realism as he charts what happens next, both within the community and the family.

Eskendir paints a picture of a world that is riven with contradictions

It’s that unvarnished authenticity that could unlock further festival play for Eskendir’s drama after its world premiere at Busan, where it was selected for the festival’s Asian Project Market in 2020 and where his 2016 debut short Off Season won the Sonje Award.

A lengthy opening single take allows Polish cinematographer Jolanta Dylewska – whose previous films include the equally ethnographically rich Cannes Un Certain Regard winner Tulpan (2008) – to showcase her skills.  We are immersed in the comings and goings at the small farmstead where Abel lives and works, as the camera’s focal point smoothly moves from one character to another, tracking them back and forth across the yard. One man has brought an elderly sheep in his motorbike sidecar, hoping to swap it for a more virile one.

In the centre of proceedings, discussions revolve around Bolat (Ulan Nusipali) a former boss man who is in the business of apportioning the livestock and making promises in return for signatures – although we already doubt they will be kept. Children come and go, playing or fetching alcohol to seal the deal, while Skynar cooks at a stove.  

While the dynamism of this opening is not sustained throughout, Eskendir repeatedly puts the distance across the yard to good use, tracking characters as they walk over it to build tension or threat. Abel and his clan are under no illusions about the problems they are likely to face under the new regime. “Nothing is fair. We must rely on ourselves,” someone notes. Abel’s issues don’t stop at the front door either, as his adult son Taken (Alikhan Lepesbay) is also hoping his father can give him animals to help settle a debt – an indication of inter-generational tensions that thread through the bigger picture. The idea of sending his son off to study hasn’t paid off in the way Abel had hoped. A neighbouring family, meanwhile, has seen the return of a son, who was incarcerated during a student uprising years before.

Eskendir does not make many concessions for an international audience in terms of the history of the country, meaning the politics discussed can be hard to follow in places. Nevertheless, the strong sense of place and time is compelling and the film’s dominant theme of trying to fight corruption is classic and universal. It’s also fascinating to witness the family dynamic and their collective work ethic.

Eskendir paints a picture of a world that is riven with contradictions. On one hand, the community comes together to celebrate the return of the prodigal – allowing for a lengthy dinner scene in which the benefits of Communism and what will replace it are debated. On the other, many are scheming to take advantage of the advent of capitalism. Russia, in general, is also presented as a bone of contention. Skylar warns a boy that Russians will come to take away whiny children, but later someone at the celebration suggests, “Those who know Russian are the happiest people”. 

Tuleutay brings a gruff stubbornness to Abel that makes him seem more vulnerable in the face of a world that is rapidly changing at a speed he is unlikely to be able to match. What might be just a farm and animals to others is intrinsically connected to his sense of self. This is not just a place of work or a home, but Abel’s entire universe.