STEPPENWOLF Review – Fantasia International Film Festival 2024

Unforgiving and unflinching, Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s “Steppenwolf” is a bleak and disturbing action thriller that blows the doors off Fantasia 2024.

Synopsis

Tamara searches for her missing son in a violent town. She hires a morally questionable ex-detective to find him. His methods are cruel but she is determined to find her son whatever the cost.

Review
When I was completing my curtain raiser for the Fantasia International Film Festival, there was one film that definitely seemed up my alley. Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s “Steppenwolf”, a mixed cocktail of “Mad Max” and “The Searchers” paired with a “Come and See” atmosphere and a nihilistic Sam Peckinpah flow. The Kazakh language film follows a psychopathic interrogator/former detective (Berіk Aitzhanov) who agrees to help a desperate woman (Anna Starchenko) search for her missing son. Chaotic fate bring these two together and with neither one having anything to lose, this bloody, take-no-prisoners tale begins. In addition to its straight forward plot, the character building and pairing of Braiyuk and Tamara is indicative of two sorrowful outcomes of civil war – one is mad with killing, the other is mad with laughter.

The film opens with a quote from Herman Hesse’s “Steppenwolf”, the name from which this film takes its title. “How could I fail to be a lone wolf, and an uncouth hermit, as I did not share one of its aims nor understand one of its pleasures?” This quote explains the dynamic between Braiyuk and Tamara, a brutal lone wolf and a praying, faithful hermit. Braiyuk is a merciless, bone-breaking interrogator who will stop at nothing nor spare anyone to stay alive in this warring wasteland. Berіk Aitzhanov’s brilliant, complex performance will go down in history as one of the most charismatic and terrifying roles. This is a character that will smile in a person’s face one moment and cooly kill them the next. A standout scene to note is when he visits someone he has history with, shares a few words with them, spin a quarter and tells them that they are dead once the quarter stops spinning. It stops and BOOM, down goes Frazier. Another standout scene, which showcases the range of Aitzhanov’s performance, is a moment where Braiyuk confesses to Tamara how he became this way, almost breaking down in spirit and voice as he describes the horrific things that happened to his family. On the flip side of the coin, Anna Starchenko delivers a layered performance as Tamara – a shaken, whispering, God-fearing woman in desperate search for her son Timka. Behind her timid eye and nervous laughter, lies a twinge of madness. Her son is everything to her, revenge is everything to Braiyuk – these motivations set these two on their unforgiving odyssey but it’s their different ideologies that lend the film its soul.

“Good isn’t necessary”. “Good is necessary”. Two different lines spoken by different characters – you can guess which. At some point in the film, Adilkhan Yerzhanov makes it apparent that this is not just a story about a psychopath and a traumatized mother. This is also a bitter, manic camaraderie of optimism and pessimism. As Tamara prays for a fallen child in one scene, Braiyuk observes from afar with a look of confoundment; as Tamara fetches coffee for a man who requests it in a brazen way, Braiyuk yells at her with frustration. It echoes the moment at the end of “The Matrix Revolutions” where a frustrated Agent Smith asks a limping, persistent Neo “Why? Why must you persist?” Braiyuk no doubt wants to ask Tamara “why” – why pray for a fallen child in a world where there are more fallen children? Why serve coffee to a man who’s a piece of crap that would not treat you with the same respect? But the answer is simple, even in a devastating world such as the one presented in “Steppenwolf”, there is still room for hope.

Closing Thoughts
Adilkhan Yerzhanov directs “Steppenwolf” with a deft, focused hand. It’s violence and dark humor may not be for everyone but for lovers of post-apocalyptic films like “Mad Max” or westerns like “The Searchers”, it’s the perfect visual treat. Brutal moments come and go like vignettes and asides and there are beautiful moments of hope and persistence that shine bright among the chaos. With a brilliant electronic score by Galymzhan Moldanazar, the brutal journey builds up to a terrific, satisfyingly violent ending reminiscent of Denis Villeneuve’s brilliant thriller “Sicario”. If there’s any unforgiving, unflinching, balls-to-the-wall film that you’re planning on seeing this year, make sure to place this film on that list.

Trailer