A Dark, Dark Man

A boy is killed in a village out on the Kazakh steppe. Detective Bekzat wants the inquiry closed quickly, since the local police have already produced a culprit. A journalist arrives from the city, that arrangement comes apart, and for the first time in his career Bekzat has to run a real investigation by the book. Adilkhan Yerzhanov does not build the film as a puzzle; he looks at whom the crime serves, how a lie becomes institutional, and at what point an officer is forced to change sides. The landscape is the coldest performer here: empty ground, houses far apart, roads that lead nowhere. Daniyar Alshinov plays Bekzat, Dinara Baktybayeva the journalist Ariana and Teoman Khos plays Pukuar. It premiered at San Sebastián in September 2019, though the record dates it 2020.