Luna Papa (1999)

This is the story of 17-year old Mamlakat, a quite innocent girl from somewhere in the deserts of Tadshikistan. One evening, she sleeps with a stranger, an unknown actor of a traveling theater group, obviously not knowing about the consequences this might have. She never sees his face and - gets pregnant. In the following, she and her family search for the unknown father.It's the unborn child who tells the story from the off, and the whole movie is as crazy and absurd like this. Drawn in mighty, impressive pictures, the movie is as strange as the landscape it takes place in.Everything fits together perfectly: the story, the actors (especially Chulpan Khamatova as Mamlakat and Moritz Bleibtreu as her brother Nasreddin) and the "special" effects.Let the story and the pictures go directly to your brain, like a colorful dream you are dreaming and can't get out. Don't block yourself with "logic" and so-called "intelligence", don't worry about crazy things that could never ever be, and you will love this unique movie!

I'm not sure I liked the ending, which was a bit on the surrealistic side even for this movie, but otherwise I was engaged by the humour of this movie. There aren't too many movies that surprise me repeatedly. I was afraid to leave my seat, as I figured the movie could go in any direction.This isn't Hollywood. Instead, this was movie with peculiar, amusing and imaginative twists and turns, not to mention the odd sight gag.I saw "A time for drunken horses" about a week before this. "Horses" was about Kurds and set in Iran on the border with Iraq, while "Luna" was set in breakaway republics of the old Soviet Union. There are lots of similarities between the movies: deep poverty, dealing with ignorant, unkind small town people, running a gauntlet of soldiers to do commerce, and so on, yet "Luna" is a great comedy and "Horses" very much a bleak drama. What you take away from both movies is that life is still very difficult and provincial in some parts of the world. Geographically, too, the films are set in locations that are not very far apart (at least from the perspective of a North American!). Woman are treated in a crappy "old world" way in both places, too.Moritz Bleibtreau as Nesreddin, the brother, is brilliant. Perhaps he is the reincarnation of Harpo Marx.If you're sick of Hollywood formula films and you want to have a good time, I'd recommend this one.

This is a nice film and I really enjoyed it. And it's different! Have you ever watched a film with a personal narrator who is never seen? Have you ever watched a film that showed you how a bull can mess up a wedding? (I won't tell you...) It is a tragicomedy that takes you to Absurdistan. Well, life can be absurd. Didn't you know that?

This is a really sweet story about the East. A young girl becomes pregnant, and her father and brother want to find the papa.Of course, it's not an easy thing, so we can follow them on their long and funny trip.It's really serious at the start, and it becomes more and more absurd. At the end, when you think it's over, it takes a round, and goes on.With beautiful scenes, and with a Kusturica-styled humor.