Kelin

There is not a line of dialogue in Ermek Tursunov’s 2009 Kazakh film. A young woman is delivered by her family to her husband’s household, where an elderly mother-in-law and a younger brother also live. The marriage is not her choice, though the man turns out to be less of a disaster than she feared, and the calm does not last. The soundtrack is the sound of the landscape; human voices enter only as another natural element, in shouts and groans. In Kazakhstan the film drew angry objections over historical accuracy and its erotic scenes, Tursunov refused to cut anything, and he was assaulted during the row. It was the country’s Oscar submission and reached the shortlist of nine.