Mark Goes to the Movies

Schizo (dir. Guka Amarova) The central character in this film is a 15-year-old so silent and seemingly out of it that he's acquired the film's title as his nickname. But of course you know he's sharper than that, which he proves when his mom's thug boyfriend gets him a job with the Kazakh mafia family the boyfriend arranges bare-knuckle fights for. Along the way, Schizo shows that he's a survivor, but a big-hearted one, and his bond with a beautiful widow (whose husband died during one of the fights) and her just-barely-not-too-adorable son is the sweetest teenage romance I've seen this year. The backdrop, Mad Max-like steppe with the ruins of industry, ghost towns, machinery strewn everywhere, only adds to the displacement--as does the strange beauty of the Kazakh people (who look closer to Tibetans and Mongols--probably since they're the great-great...grandchildren of the Khan Himself--than they do to Russians). Mark's review: ***