On the official website of NIFFF, Yerden Telemissov’s sci-fi comedy “SASYQ” is described as a “Roadside alien encounter”, and it is summarised with such precision and wit that any other one-liner can hardly top it. The film about the bromance between two stinkers from different planets screens in the festival’s International Competition, and it is a pretty out-of-this-world experience. It heavily leans on the Kazakh comedy tradition, which is raw and still matter-of-factly politically incorrect, particularly in its use of violence and salty jokes to make a point. Yet, it also marks the beginning of something new in the country’s filmic landscape. We are thrown into a seemingly vacuous, crazy story about the unlikely friendship between two intergalactic losers, who represent the marginalised group of social outcasts fighting against windmills. The world needs more Sci-Fi movies from Kazakhstan, the country famous for the original, offbeat productions largely unspoiled by foreign influences.
SASYQ is screening at Neuchatel International Fantastic Film Festival
The film opens with one of the two leads (Bakhytzhan Alpeis), stiff drunk, lying spread-eagled in a field, namely, a retired university professor who, consumed by alcoholism, wanders around in distress, plotting a sure way to die. When he finally manages to hang himself from a massive metal construction in the woods, he gets distracted by a shiny object that spirals down from the sky and decides to cut the rope out of sheer curiosity. “Sasyq” is the Kazakh word for stinker, and there is so much stench in the movie that your nostrils will play along with what you see.
At the time of the unexpected extraterrestrial visit, the mayor of the small town where the professor is currently passing through is trying to improve the overall appearance of the place upon being notified that the presidential convoy will pass through it. He is instructed over the phone by an unknown official on what to do: all buildings facing the highway must look presentable, and taxi drivers, drunks, and vagrants should be immediately removed. This puts two people in immediate danger. The haggard professor who corresponds to the description of an unwanted hobo is one of them. The other is a local store owner, an elderly, tough-as-nails lady (Irka Abdulmanova) who is asked, in not such a nice way, to embellish the look of her business.
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The director credits his actors by the roles they are playing: old man, grandmother, mayor, police officer, granddaughter, ex-husband, shepherd, and so on, which is extremely helpful and should be pushed as a standard for each movie. There is no mistake about who is who in this simply plotted, entertaining slapstick that could be read as a not-so-cute version of Steven Spielberg’s “E.T.” (1982).
Telemissov’s alien isn’t cute, and although good at heart, it is hardly a creature one would want to hide in a cupboard, or fly high up in the skies on a bike. He comes from a highly toxic planet that turned his skin into a slime-producing device. To make things worse, as someone who can not take any solid food into his mouth, he feeds on the only unlimited source of liquid nourishment found on the spot, which will make every sensitive person’s stomach churn. The shenanigans that the main character in Lukas Rinker’s “Holy Shit” had to go through, in another comedy that the NIFFF’s audience had the pleasure of viewing back in 2022, seem almost like walk in the park. At least, he wasn’t forced to feed from the source of his trouble.
“SASYQ” is visibly done on a shoestring budget, and the alien visitor who crashes in the Kazakh bush and finds his hiding place in the bog outside the general store, located in the middle of nowhere, looks like a creature that sprang out of an 1980s Sci-Fi movie. Does this matter for the audience? Hardly. It’s a ride one gladly pays a ticket for.
Telemissov is amusingly political in his script, co-written with Sergey Litovchenko. There are several easter eggs scattered throughout the movie’s pleasant 94 minutes of runtime. The store in the pampa, doomed to fight for its existence, is called “Hope”, and the only police officer (Zangar Ahmet-Qazy) in the provincial town is a spineless flat-Earther, manipulated by the local “Napoleon” – a toxic alpha male, who also happens to be his boss and the mayor (Dulyga Aqmolda). Their conversations and the simplified, yet well-functioning, imbalanced power roles are depicted in a hilariously amusing manner.
So, how do you help an alien repair his life-essential device? It is not an iPad or the orthodox cross that does the job. It is not even an old radio or a junkyard full of diverse technical gadgets, but an ordinary police badge, if you’re wondering. Telemissov is generally poking at church, in wonderfully legere way. Looking at the icon of St Nicholas, the alien is asking his newly won best pal if that was Grandma’s husband. There is also a highly amusing conversation about procreation, with the newcomer not digging how humans get their offspring, or why they feel attached to something as silly as “family”. Eggs are all they know about.
Cinematographer Azamat Dulatov (“Yernar Nurgaliyev’s Sweety, You Won’t Believe It”, 2022) seamlessly switches with great ease between droning, zooming, wide-lensing, and closing up. His camera makes up for a blemish or two in this lightweight genre piece that could have profited from pulling the break on Muinzoda’s omnipresent music pathos.
What do we get from “SASYQ”? Pure fun, regardless of its flaws. It is insane, unhinged and simple. Hardly a masterpiece or something that will change the course of film history, it is still worth watching.
The future of the distribution of this movie is uncertain, but the world premiere at NIFFF will secure its way to other genre festivals.
