GOLIATH

Adilkhan Yerzhanov takes us back again to Karatas – the Kazakh village in the middle of nowhere that serves as the setting for the majority of his cinematic tales. Unscrupulous gangster boss Poshaev calls all the shots here: housing, employment and life in general are decided according to his whims, for the whole village community, which Arzu, with his wife Karina and his daughter, also calls home. When Karina informs the police about Poshaev's crimes, the latter shows no mercy. Arzu now has to raise his daughter alone and rise above the hostile situation. When Poshaev begins to take Arzu under his wing, thoughts of revenge stir inside the otherwise so helpless man, till soon he is faced with a fateful decision. Yerzhanov's Western-style retelling of the David versus Goliath topos unfolds in a deliberate manner, with an eye for the universal. Amid the lawlessness and brutal emptiness of the cinematic landscape, the prolific Kazakh filmmaker discovers his "serious" side in GOLIATH, largely foregoing his signature black humour in favour of cultivating credible characters and dynamics.