User Reviews

I watched this film at Istanbul Film Festival recently and it certainly placed itself among the top 3 of my favorites this year. What a way to express a man's sadness, desperate situation, and bitterness, due to the loss of his loved ones! And a wonderful way to express a woman's loyalty. It was also great pleasure to watch the wild view of the Asian steppes, while the plot slowly penetrated into my mind and heart. Last but not least, the beautiful actress and her non-exaggerated acting are worth mentioning. Being a person from an eastern culture, this film appealed a lot to me. There is a lot of spirit in the film, with a subtle expression of emotions. All in all, Schlöndorff made my day.

I really like this film, but I find it frustrating because it reminds me of another film from over a decade ago - maybe several decades - and I cannot for the life of me remember what it is.

Schlöndorff is a film-maker whom I have never really admired, yet here he makes what really ought to be dross into a ethereal almost masterpiece. In a way, the film is in two discreet sections - first Charles leaves 'the world' behind. He leaves behind his car and vice (as in prostitutes, drugs) money - in the oilfields - and his identity (when he jettisons his papers). So he loses everything, then he sets out to discover everything. First the very beautiful and charming Ulzhan, then the crazy Shakuni played by David Bennent. Then the 'meaning of life', perhaps.

It is Shakuni's character who is driving me crazy. A man who sells words... I am sure there is another film with such a man - maybe a Godard film...

Anyway, the brilliant central section set in the steppes is absolutely magnificent - the bleak desert exteriors and the desolate abandoned settlements and gulag-style prisons look like something left over from Herzog's 'Fata Morgana'.

Why I like - nay love - this film is that it ought to be bleak and unforgiving and depressing, but there is such rich humanity in its characters, and such consistently expressive imagery and montage in its style that it is gently euphoric.

I saw this to a full house at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was artfully done, and skillfully told, this story focuses on a French man's journey through the steppes of Kazakhastan. This journey clearly matched the landscape: desolate, lonely, down-trodden. Perhaps sad. Provocative views, emerged both from the scenery and the loneliness that sometimes seared through the tale.

I enjoyed the views of the rivers and steppes, the animals, and the people. It was a view of a land and culture I have never seen. The encounters with Ulzhan, a French teacher at a Kazakhastani school, and even Shakani, were good momentum builders to a seemingly desolate trajectory, injected at the right time to keep the story moving.

In my mind, this movie is not about Ulzhan, but the man's journey. This probably created some unwanted expectations in my mind. I think if the movie were differently titled -- not sure to what -- it might have been better setup in my mind.

Nonetheless, this was a good movie overall. It was leisurely paced to capture the lost feelings of the story, well-acted, and with the right tone and backdrop to capture the bleak and subtle humanity of the overall movie.

Just happened to me seeing this great film on the Arte Channel yesterday night. I was sitting there and was literally fascinated and captured by its cinematographic language. Finally a real movie! There are so little good movies... today. Because fifty years of television ruined and profaned the art of cinematic storytelling, compromising the ability of the spectator to enjoy such a resource and representation of life. A beautiful and sacred movie, a must see. But there's only one thing, at the end, and I don't know why I feel like this, this film I thought could have had a more crystalline happy ending. Many many congratulations to the director, keep up the good work!

Wow, that last comment read a lot more into the film than I think was intended. Ulzhan is no slave. She is life and hope. She is the nagging voice inside that says "live!" when everything else is death and despair. This film most was appropriately titled Ulzhan. Even though we don't meet her until far into the film, her role is not lessened. It's important to feel his despair before she enters.

When I saw this film at a French film festival in Virginia, the audience was silent at the end not because we didn't like the film, but because of it's weight and in wonder. I imagine the end of the story depends on whether you are a glass is half-full or half-empty kind of person.

This film is one of my all time favorites.

Ulzhan (2007) Ulzhan is just about the worst type of trash that one runs into at film festivals. Ostensibly the story is about a French teacher who mysteriously stops his car on the side of a highway in the middle of Kazakhastan and starts walking East into the steppes. Despite being grounded in a very unassuming and naturalistic performance by Philippe Torreton and set against the very real backdrop of modern Kazakhastan, the film exists in a world of dream logic. Much of the dialog is alternatively poetic or lunatic and the relationships between French teacher and the two guides he picks up are only understandable on subconscious symbolic level, as in dreams.

At a symbolic level, the film appears to be about European involvement with the eastern world. The film takes place in the steppes of central Eurasia, the very border of the occidental and oriental worlds. Throughout the film we're consciously reminded of the cultural ('living in zoo vs. living in the jungle'), economic (international oil drilling), and environmental (aral sea, nuclear testing sites) impacts of occidental involvement in the orient. Unfortunately a lot of the comment seems to be overtly racist. The French man in many ways seems to represent the Occidental world in it's relationship with the oriental world. He is racked with self doubt, and existential concerns over his presence and purpose, which he describes as a search for 'treasure', but seems to be a desire for self-destruction. Despite his wish to remain uninvolved with anyone while on his search, a young local Kazakhastani woman, Ulzhan, who herself works as a French teacher insists on leaving everything to follow the French man and serve him as a slave (oh, the white man's burden). The comment seems to be that as much as Europeans/Americans may desire to remain uninvolved in the oriental worlds they invade for resources (etc.) they will find themselves playing the unwanted role of master to the oriental, even if they had not intended it. The film ends on the note of the oriental slave being the only one that can save the Europe from itself. Needless to say, a Toronto audience wasn't particularly impressed with the message. The film didn't receive a single clap at its conclusion, which is the first time I've seen that at any festival movie.

This film is a road movie with no road, a journey without goal and some beings who are no more or not yet human. But they are and that keeps your eyes on the screen.

The movie is a spiritual quest filmed with "a sort of" realism. The beautiful landscapes of the steppe are full of oil wells or ruined kholkoz or nuclear test ground. Characters are alive, even when they are, like the main character, dead inside.

You have to find your own moral of this story. It depends probably on where you are on your own way. Anyway, Ulzhan can help you to think of life, death, rebirth and many other topics. Magical with no magic, this never empty desert waits for what you will pour inside.