SolnetchnIye dni

Winter in Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan. The country is not a country people migrate to but rather migrate from. The population density is amongst the lowest on this planet; 64 per cent are Kazakhs, 23 per cent are Russians and then there are also the Uzbeks, Uyghurs, Tatars, Meskhetian, Bashkirs, Chuvashes. However, the dominance of the Soviet rule left many marks not only as regards language. A country, Sacha Baron Cohen (BORAT, 2006) can make fun of all too easily.

The 41-year-old Kazakh director does not think anything to be funny anymore. Thus he lets a lonely, disillusioned young man wander through the streets of a city once called Alma-Ata, depicting him as a harrowing allegory of a lost generation. No work, no money, the threat of eviction upon him, a last remaining bit of tooth paste left in the tube, his best friend tells him to “Go to hell”. But he is not that far gone yet. Casual sex and a saleswoman at a general store convey signals of hope and confidence. For a short period there is warmth in a cold country in a cold time. Thus the snow falls and the nameless hero with it. The director is a master of innuendo, of depressive ciphers, of tender melancholy yet also of irony – or why else should he have named his film “Sunny Days”. His brother in cinematography and Finnish colleague Aki Kaurismäki is a melancholic optimist, but not so this one. Yet what says Mr Zwilling so beautifully in one of Volker Koepp’s most touching films: “After all, the pessimist is just a well-informed optimist”.