[Marxism] "Schizo"

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

After Mustafa, aka "Schizo," is expelled from his Kazakhstan high school 
for fighting, his mother takes him to the local doctor for an examination 
who decides that the fifteen year old is suffering from "deviations" and 
prescribes unidentified medication that the boy takes in his 
characteristically affectless manner.

Director Guka Omarova is from Kazakhstan herself as is most of the 
nonprofessional cast, including Olzhas Nussuppaev who plays Schizo. 
Nussuppaev was discovered in a local orphanage. Despite his humble 
circumstances, he is the great-grandchild of a famous Kazakh writer jailed 
by Stalin in 1937.

Filmed on location in this newly "liberated" Soviet republic, it is an 
unstinting view of poverty and degradation. Since the former Soviet Union 
has adopted many of the characteristics of a Third World country, it is no 
surprise that a young director like Omarova would draw upon neorealist 
traditions to depict the struggle of young Schizo to stay afloat 
economically and spiritually. With its laconic style, deadpan humor and 
unconcealed hatred for class injustice, it will also remind you of the work 
of Finland's Aki Kaurismaki.

Schizo has a job with his mom's boyfriend recruiting barefisted fighters 
for illegal bouts run by local gangsters. Most of them are drawn from the 
ranks of unemployed coal miners who shape up each morning outside an 
abandoned pit. After one of them receives a terrible beating in and lies 
dying on the locker room floor, he calls Schizo to his side and with his 
last breath directs him to bring the earnings to his girlfriend Zina (Olga 
Landina, a professional actor) and their young son Sanzhik (played by 
Kanagat Nurtay, also from a local orphanage).

Although he remains inexpressive, Schizo begins to fall in love with the 
widow who eventually returns her love. In the hovel she calls home, the two 
seek happiness with very low expectations about their future. She daydreams 
about moving to China where "there's lots of money." He lives for the 
moment, recruiting new fighters for the illegal game, including his uncle 
Jaken (Bakhytbek Baymukhanbetov.)

Jaken is a true product of the new Kazakhstan, making a living stealing 
electrical cable and drinking vodka at all times of the day. When Schizo 
observes Jaken and his partners stripping cable from nearby towers, he asks 
whether they risk electrocution. Not to worry, his uncle reassures him, 
there hasn't been power in the area for many months. Although Jaken is 
getting old and has been weakened by chronic alcoholism, Schizo thinks that 
he has a good shot at winning the gangster chieftain's Mercedes-Benz as a 
top prize. When Jaken was younger, he once fought off a dozen cops.

Although Jaken's opponent outweighs him by at least fifty pounds and begins 
the match by throwing him about the ring, Jaken's kickboxing skills finally 
prevail. Jaken and Schizo sell the gangster's car immediately and Schizo 
returns to Zina with his share of the earnings. Eventually, the gangsters 
demand the return of the prize money even if it has been won fairly. The 
film's climax revolves around Schizo's struggle to hold on to the money.

In a very real sense, the Kazakh landscape functions as a major character 
in the film. Although desolate and foreboding, it has an otherworldly 
beauty that serves to accentuate the desperate struggle of the main 
characters to survive. Filmed on location near Lake Kapchagay, which is 
only 60 kilometers from Alma-Alta, one gets the sense of a natural terrain 
that has lost its ability to sustain life. One also gets the sense that the 
main characters will struggle on despite having that knowledge themselves. 
Ironically, Alma-Alta was where Leon Trotsky lived in internal exile in 
1928. Stalin must have decided--quite accurately from the feeling conveyed 
by the film--that Alma-Alta was beyond the pale.

In the production notes for "Schizo," director Omarova explains how she got 
the idea for the film:

"A few years ago in a cafe in Almaty [in Holland, where she currently 
resides] I happened upon a man seriously beaten up by life. He asked for 
permission to sit at my table. I was going to leave, so I nodded. On his 
tray he had a cup of tea, some sandwiches and a bottle of vodka. He asked 
me in Kazakh if I wanted to drink some vodka with him. I didn't want to, so 
I got up to leave. All of a sudden he got in a bustle, drank the first shot 
and began to tell his life story. He said that he was a boxer who took part 
in illegal fights. He didn't look like an operator. Swollen knuckles and 
mangled nose modestly completed his quite homely appearance. He was 23 year 
old. There was despair and exhaustion in his eyes. He told me that he was 
from the south where the cool Kazakh guys live. They were always flush and 
knew how to come out clean. But he was a different case. His mother and 
sisters stayed back in his village. It was the beginning of the 90's and in 
Kazakhstan there was no work? absolutely none. Actually, there was the 
newly gained Independence, which to begin with was no small thing. But 
people like him, the millions, they needed work. And they were leaving for 
the big cities to find work. He looked in my eyes and I felt guilty. I 
hadn't known anything about them, but at that moment I understood one 
thing? they never move back home. That's how the story about boxing was born."

full: 
<http://www.picturethisent.com/pressroom/schizo/index.html>http://www.picturethisent.com/pressroom/schizo/index.html

Although "Schizo" supposedly depicts the ruinous state of Kazakhstan in the 
early 1990s, it would be a mistake to think that things have changed that 
much for the better in the intervening years. Despite economic growth 
fueled by oil exports, the revenues have not filtered down to the masses. 
The country is much more like Nigeria than Venezuela in the way that 
private wealth and the public interest interact. Kazakhstan is ranked 78th 
in the world in terms of Human Development Indicators, according to the 
UN's 2004 report. For comparison's sake, Belarus is number 62 and Romania 
is number 69.

In addition to social inequality, Kazakhstan is also plagued by 
environmental despoliation. When Soviet planners decided to turn the Aral 
Sea into a water source for cotton production, they condemned Kazakhstan to 
suffer the consequences. Water diverted from Kazakhstan's rivers to 
irrigate thirsty cotton fields did not anticipate the results. When the 
Aral Sea began to dry up, salt sand and dust from the exposed sea bottom 
blew across the region, causing intense respiratory problems. Pesticides 
and fertilizers used to feed for cotton production seeped into water and 
irrigation channels, poisoning food and drinking water. This led to the 
highest death and infant mortality rates in all the former Soviet Union. 
Almost all pregnant women are anemic.

Although "Schizo" does not refer specifically to any of these problems, it 
at least has the merit of looking at the country's true conditions without 
flinching or applying cosmetics. That is all one can ask from a film 
nowadays. "Schizo" premieres in New York City on March 18th and in Los 
Angeles on March 25th. It is well worth seeing.


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