A harrowing epitaph of post-soviet Kazakhstan, Emir Baigazan's The Wounded Angel is a haunting examination of the social disintegration which took place in the beginning of the 1990s, when the region faced a massive transition, which led to emotional and economical turmoil among its inhabitants, most notably having a devastating effect on the youth of the region. Told in four interconnected stories, all of which focus on the exploits of 13-year-old boys, The Wounded Angel details the grim reality which follows these young men as they transition to adulthood, each confronted with moral and ethical dilemmas which shape their lives and leave them deeply damaged and forever changed as they transition to adulthood. Detailing four unique stories, The Wounded Angel paints a grave picture of a life in which optimism, promise, and hope are fleeting ideals, subjecting the viewer to a harsh reality for these youthful subjects, each of which is caught in an environment where youthful exuberance is non-existent. The four titles, grimly titled 'fate', 'the fall', 'greed', and 'sin, each present a bleak story of youth, all displaying a quiet, brooding sense of inevitability, with their actions and behaviors seemingly having no impact in the outcome of their lives, victims of the circumstances that surround them in the world in which they inhabit. While the subject of the first story finds himself seemingly, inevitably follow down the same path as his father, succumbing to thievery in an attempt to get ahead in a place that offers very little possibilities, the main character of the second story starts out with promise, rejecting the masculine, dog-eat-dog nature of his world, only to succumb to it in the end when illness robs him of his potential future as a singer. While these stories have nothing in common on the surface, they each share a sobering examination of post-soviet Kazakhastan, a place where youth is met by a harsh socio-economical reality, one which is almost guaranteed to inflict emotional damage on the individual as they transition through adolescence into adulthood The third story is the most haunting due to its ability to visually present what looks like a post-apocalyptic environment, detailing the exploits of a young boy who scours the barren landscape for various metals and objects he can sell, cold and calculating when it comes to saving every dime he can, shaped and molded by a hard environment where one must always look out for oneself first and foremost, with greed being a fitting title. The last story is perhaps the most sobering of all, detailing the story of a young, promising boy who is studying to be a doctor. Forced to make a tough decision, which I won't detail here, the young boy soon becomes endlessly haunted by it, driven to the point of madness by the outcome of his decision, corrupted and shattered by the morality of his decision, one that a boy his age should never be forced to even comprehend, let alone make. Emir Baigazan's direction is static, precise, and meditative, with the filmmaking using depth of frame and composition to perfection, often with both the foreground and background of the frame providing substance, visually expressing the cold, inner-psyche of its characters, whose detachment exhibits the inevitability of their lives' in this environment. Featuring no musical score, little dialogue, and a relatively plotless, ensemble structure, Emir Baigazan's The Wounded Angel presents a stark portrait of childhood in post-soviet Kazakhstan, one that feels autobiographical in nature, due to its ability to evoke the feeling in which insurmountable struggle is an intrinsic quality of day-to-day life, where hope and promise are merely a romanticized dream.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
|