Numerous minor tornadoes whirl across the steppe in director Sergei Dvortsevoy's Kahzak-language film “Tulpan,” but no one seems to care. The wind, the tornadoes and the general squalor of life for a rural nomadic sheepherder in Kazakhstan is completely taken for granted, buried in the daily routine of eking out a living.    The average viewer, on the other hand, is more likely to be taken aback, but Mr. Dvortsevoy's film casually refuses to accept or even acknowledge its foreignness, which gives “Tulpan” a warm, natural feel that colors the mundane, sometimes disturbing reality on the steppe. It's unlikely that many viewers would enter into “Tulpan” with a rosy-hued vision of Kazakhstan, but the film gives us all of the unpleasant realities of nomadic life — constant blowing sand, filthy clothes, rotted teeth and cantankerous animals — while also giving us rare glimpses of the triumphs too, like the dramatic on-screen birth of a lamb that represents the film's highest dramatic peak.
    Tulpan, the name of a faceless girl who never speaks and whom we never clearly see, is nonetheless the most important character to Aso (Askhat Kuchencherekov), a young man who moves into his older sister's yurt, which she shares with her husband Ondas (Ondas Besikbasov), and their several children. The owner of the land that Ondas grazes his sheep on refuses to allow Aso to run his own flock until he is married, claiming that a sheepherder's life is impossible without a wife to cook and clean. Aso, nice-enough looking and seemingly honest, wants nothing more than an opportunity to provide for himself, but women are scarce, and Tulpan rejects his offer, leaving him unmarried and unlanded.
    Framed by the spectacular, desolate steppe, “Tulpan” makes the most of the dramatic narrative of daily life. Ondas' children, extraneous to the plot yet integral to the tone of the film, flesh out our perceptions of the family, with the youngest child providing rare moments of laughter as he cavorts around the farm pretending to ride a horse. His older sister contributes to the atmosphere with relentless singing of a folk song, tunefully shouted with the utter abandon of a child.
    Yet it is Aso’s face that provides the deepest-running channel to the film, exhilarated and laughing when he thinks he has wooed the stubborn Tulpan; battered and angry when he is repeatedly denied his manhood; credulous but joyous when he helps deliver a healthy lamb. The moment itself is wondrous (the live birth is a daring, yet beautiful artistic choice from Mr. Dvortsevoy) but it is in watching Aso’s face — filthy, covered in placenta, yet suddenly responsible and mature — that upstages even the dramatic scenery around him.

Lindsay Warner can be reached at culture@lindsaywarner.net