The Fall of Otrar
(Gibel Otrara)

Some films mysteriously remain on shelves. Truly, this film should
never have taken another form than its publication in the Iskusstvo
Kino magazine in 1990. The screenplay was written in the mid-1980s
by Alexei Guerman and his wife Svetlana Karmilata. As in other
Kazakhfilm studio productions (run by Amyrkulov from 1994 to 1997),
the influence of the great Soviet cinema is obvious, also mixed with
outside references. It is easy to recognise traces of Ivan the Terrible
or Andrei Rublev in Ardak Amyrkulov’s film, as well as echoes of
historical films such as Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood and Red
Beard. This film is on an equal ground with such masterpieces. The
overwhelming claustrophobia of interior scenes only lit with a candle
or a torch is matched by the devastating fury of the battle scenes JB