Luna Papa (1999) User Reviews

khudojnazarov calls it traditional tragicomedy; we call it monty python in russia.

[snadman · 8/10 · 22 September 1999]

if we'd missed this film, we'd have had to fly to russia or sweden to see it. what an expensive night at the cinema that would prove. (is there a distributor out there reading this? we've got a big *HINT* stick we'd like to hit you with.)

we laughed and gaped through the entire film. we saw it at the toronto international film festival. mr khudojnazarov fielded questions after the premier. we asked about the scene with the cow; we believe he called it something akin to "an act of god".

please, see it and promote charming, intelligent directors who make charming, intelligent movies.

ps, you'll find out what happened to manni after lola ran with her DM.

Very wild!

[jeremy3 · 7/10 · 17 November 2007]

Since I only understand a little Russian, I had to guess what was going on. This movie was set in Tazikistan. The terrain was semi-desert. There was grass mixed with desert and mountains. I wasn't sure whether it was in the 80s or the 90s in which the movie took place, because in one scene the heroine is dancing in a pumpkin outfit and an official is there with a red star. In addition, there were lots of troops around, especially tank drivers. That led me to believe it was set in the 80s, and the troops were Russian soldiers on the way to Afghanistan. It is also possible that this is set in 1999 and the soldiers are involved in inter factional post-Soviet fighting. In either case, it is a wild place, where life is very cheap. People are always shooting at each other, kidnapping people, and getting into petty disputes. It is obvious that this is a Muslim region. It is a very rough and wild place. This young women gets raped while walking in the woods near her village. The man is an actor who flies around with his troupe from village to village and seduces women along the way. The young woman gets pregnant. It is a horribly embarrassing and difficult situation for her proud and caring Father. He is mad at first. Her brother, though, is immediately supportive. He is demented, and the villagers seem to tolerate his eccentricity of running around the village with bottles attached to his neck, like he is an airplane, destroying property along the way. What villagers don't tolerate is a woman who has been raped. They believe that it is her fault and that she is a bad person. It is a big stigma. Her Father decides to find the culprit. He goes from village to village looking for him. Since his daughter revealed that it was an actor, the Father goes to local theater productions and accosts any male in the cast. In the meantime, his Daughter falls in love with a doctor who rides along on an ambulance. The doctor pretends to be his lover, and they are to be married. However, a cow falls from the sky and kills both her Father and her lover during the wedding. I guess the filmmaker is mixing reality with surreality to empathize the craziness of living in Central Asia. The movie was pretty good. I spent a bit of the time trying to figure where it was set. The village was on a rather large lake or a small sea. It appeared to be salinated water. That's why I thought it was the Aral Sea. However, during the credits I saw that it was filmed in Tadzikistan. The only sizable lake is near Tashkent, and only that area is not completely mountainous. The area in the film was somewhat mountainous, but more steppeland and desert.

Tale about East

[mozibuzi · 8/10 · 14 October 2000]

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.

A crazy dream of a movie!

[rdissinger · 10/10 · 17 May 2003]

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!

Innovative, funny, and surrealistic

[rvm-2 · 10/10 · 29 April 2001]

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.

Magic!!!

[stefanhoeffllin · 10/10 · 5 October 2000]

Mamlakat lives together with her father, her mentally handicapped brother Nasreddin and her sister. Her mother died when she was born. She´s dreaming of the great wide world. As a traveling group of theatre actors arrives in their little town, she´s spents a night with one of them. Actually she don´t even know his face or his name. One day she notices that she got pregnant and tells her father about it. They decide to find the unknown father of her unborn child. A long journey begins...

This movie will make you laugh and cry! It´s funny, charming but also tragic. Watch it, you will love it !!!

Sheer Fantasy!

[rshane · 10/10 · 1 March 2001]

I was finally able to catch this movie after missing it here at the film festival a couple of years ago. I must say that the wait was certainly worth it. The visual presentation of the movie is spectacular and the lovely endearing yet perverse story line only further adds to the experience of watching. The characterizations are wonderful and the manic nature of most of the characters brings an energy to the story. My favourite scenes were the "kidnap" ventures and the wonderful shots of the water - the colours are breathtaking. I will certainly have to see this one again before it disappears!!

The allegory of Luna Papa

[acw202 · 5 November 2004]

The film is a pre-Enlightenment allegory, or the description of one thing under the guise of another. Certainly not social utopianism or realism. The young woman tempts the mortal laws by defying custom and the material world. She wants to follow her spirit and a craving for Shakespeare and the world of Orpheus. She is compelled to bring forth the child . . . or the longing of her soul. She suffers various hardships and adventures on her journey, sometimes comically and ineptly aided by her hapless buffoon father and idiot-savant brother. Only when she leaves the earth can the mysterious birth occur in the coupling of the female with the male.

Excellent !!

[yfitigu · 9/10 · 8 February 2006]

I really enjoyed this movie. A great tragicomedy! True to form, the story is great and unusual written by Irakli Kvirikadze. The story has multiple layers, so I recommend one more viewing to grasp its richness. I highly recommend seeing other films written by Kvirikadze. His screenplays are very enjoyable with layers of complexities. Most recent is 27 missing kisses directed by his wife Nana Djordjadze. He collaborated often with his wife. A Chef in Love (american release 1996) was one such film that was nominated for the Academy Awards in 1997. A feast for the eyes. Irakli Kvirikadze was first known for both his writing and directing.His films were repeatedly banned in the 80s and 90s during Soviet rule. Today he is known simultaneously as the Fellini of post-soviet cinema and the leader in post-soviet renaissance.

lends new meaning to having a cow of a day!

[dr_salter · 9/10 · 9 July 2007]

I loved this movie from the minute I saw the scene where a bull drops out of a local delivery plane & plummets to earth killing two main characters. YUP the bull did the job and then swam to shore unharmed! But I am too far ahead of myself...

This movie has a wonderfully painterly quality that is brought about by the surrealistic cinematic effects that the director, Bakhtiar Khudojnazarov brings with his use of bright colours and washes of Technicolor. The female lead, Chulpan Khamatova, is perfect as the seventeen years old aspiring actress who loves Shakespeare and wants to become a film star. She lives in a small village in Uzbekistan with her mentally damaged brother and her loving father. The girl meets an entrepreneur ( plane pilot) and has sex with him after he makes her believe that he is a friend of Tom Cruise. The next thing she knows, she is pregnant, desperate and on a quest to restore the family honor by finding the cowardly jerk who seduced her. Father, and daughter (Mamlakat) supported by the decidedly "different" brother (wonderfully played by Moritz Bleibtrau--Manny in 'Run Lola Run') begin a wildly fantastic trip through the landscapes of Uzbekistan in which tradition and superstition clash with the chaos of a materialistic world. The wonderful script makes the film's sometimes slapstick and giddy narrative into something grander -- a meditation on maternity as a form of inspired madness.

One scene is great genius... The local delivery plane with a bull and a cow in the holding bay swoops sideways to get a closer look at Mamlakat's wedding taking place on a barge in the middle of the the lake, and just as the plane swoops, the bull falls out of the side door of the plane & plummets down to land SPLAT on the bride's new husband-to-be & her father- killing them both dead- and leaving her pregnant and a sinner. Chulpan Khamatova is perfect as Mamlakat, the perplexed mother to be, confronting miracles, wonders, joy, death and the unexpected as she searches for her child's father. Try & find this DVD or haunt the late night channels like I do.

Excellent movie

[Gravitino · 10/10 · 25 April 2006]

I may recommend this movie for those who has a great enjoy of life. The music in the movie is the music of life. The movie itself shows the truth in the life, the truth which is difficult to correct or let me say, to change. Th life in the deserts like Farkhor is very difficult. I myself spend my life in such conditions. For those who never experienced this life maybe the movie is a bit funny. But for me, I didn't notice any comedy, but rather tragedy. Yes, the tragedy of the usual lie of Tajiks.

The movie is in Tajik/Russian language. However it is written that the movie is in Russian only.

Daler Nazarov is great in choosing composition. Long live Bakhtiyar Khudaynazarov!!!

Offbeat, bohemian comedy with Merchant Ivory production values

[openthebox · 10/10 · 3 December 2000]

For those used to an anglo-saxon, Hollywood tradition of narrative movie-making, Luna Papa is a refreshing eyeopener. Imagine Ionesco on the big screen. It's a road movie of sorts, where armoured personnel carriers and crazed cattle-rustling pilots harrass our motley group of heroes as they drive their fabulous Volga across the lakes and landscapes of Tadzhikistan. For lovers of cinematography, the pure unadulterated sunshine and vibrant colours of the region suffuses the film with an uplifting warmth. Match this with some of the quirkiest bizarreries you're likely to have encountered: the heroine dances in a troupe of cabaret vegetables, her suitor electrocutes himself when proposing marriage, her father and brother will stop at nothing in hunting down her suspected inseminators. All in all, a thoroughly entertaining film. I won't tell you about the scene with the bull, but it's one of those cinematic moments that will stay in your head forever.

It's different!

[Cinemator · 26 January 2001]

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?

Kusturica for the poor

[Lorenz of 71 · 2/10 · 15 August 2000]

When I watched this movie, I was reminded of the films of Emir Kusturica. The setting in an eastern landscape (here: somewhere in the asian part of russia) and the grotesque characters could have been elements in Films of Bosnian director Emir Kusturica. But in this case it doesn't work. The film is simply boring. Try Time of the Gypsies of Arizona Dream from Kusturica instead.

Full of crazy coincidences that make it in some way realistic

[Firas · 7 August 2000]

This movie reminds strongly of some movies of the director Emir Kusturica. It takes places in an ex-soviet republic in Central Asia. It shows to which extent it became chaotic there after the fall of the soviet union. It is full of contradictories and bizarre happenings. A family is looking for a wandering actor who made its daughter pregnant. During this search many crazy things occur and the end is even crazier. Nevertheless it is very interesting. Sometimes it is very funny and some other times it is sad. It shows also the conditions in which people in this zone of the world are living. It reminds strongly of the movies of Emir Kusturica about Yugoslavia or it's former republics.

And they flew away on a weird carpet

[alphahumphrey-54847 · 10/10 · 9 September 2019]

Today is the National Day of Tajikistan. I remember renting this on VHS in the local Danish library ages ago, and the library had a selection of non Hollywood movies like Luna Papa. This is 1001 Nights for adults and classes that want to be educated about Ex Soviet.

It's the greatest movie by a Tajikistani Director

[sohait · 10/10 · 3 February 2001]

I have seen this movie at a festival in Budapest last October. What can I say, great plot, cast with the traditional Tajik music performed by Daler Nazarov. Viva Bakhtiyar!! Viva Tajikistan!! The story truly reflects whatever that happened to Tajiks and Tajikistanis during the last decade of the last century. Please do not confuse it w/ Russia, as it is not true. We are one Great Nation of Tajiks completely different from what you might picture about Russia. I am proud of Bakhtiyar!! Well done!!

Great play by Chulpan Khamatova and Ato Mukhamedjanov!! You are the Oscar winners!!

A Western! Not even an Eastern!

[marchrijo · 9/10 · 28 August 2000]

Splendid! In the beginning, I needed some time to accustom to the pictures. Then I realized, that I've been confused by some of the stage-like settings and, of course, by the "unnatural" colours. This is a quite ironic hommage to all the Cinemascope movies of the fifties an sixties, perhaps of some of the obscure ethnographic movies of the former Soviet Union...? Anyway, the camera, and some of the motifs, are producing a real American Western athmosphere. Remember the shooting of the gynaecologist: a Sergio Leone shootout! The visits at the grave: Four Sons of Katie Elder! The village - no contradiction, please! - is in effect a mexican one! But I suppose, that there had never been a Cinemascope movie with such a treasure of excentric, magic and witty ideas! By the way, the speed of action is influences by Emir Kusturica... The girl is really cute.. And a great comedy talent!

Incredible!!!

[ef3_2000 · 10/10 · 31 August 2000]

It's such a great movie, the direction is perfect, the landscapes are beautiful, and the actors are really good. You can laugh a lot, but you don't lose a sense of reality (well, sometimes it's a little exaggerate). If you like Kusturica you can't miss it.

Do not waste your time (1 out of 10)

[leonid_d · 1/10 · 18 September 2002]

I rented this movie cause the girl at the store said it was incredible. Well, maybe it is, but only for those twisted-minded "elite" movie watchers. For me, the movie was boring. It is so predictable: as the one who has watched lots of Russian films, I could tell how it would end after the first 15 mins. I regret every minute I wasted on this movie. I do not understand those putting it high marks. I give it 1 out of 10, if there were negative ratings, I would go for it...

A nice film, but...

[Steph-65 · 15 August 2000]

"Luna Papa" is a nice and also funny film but some scenes seem quite strange. Sometimes, me and my friends just looked at each other, a big "?" in the face. Some scenes are comparable to what the French call "absurd theater" but the end (about from the moment when the cow fell down) is not "absurd" but stupid.

Underrated movie

[jaholmconsulting · 10/10 · 14 January 2024]

I remember watching this over 20 years ago and I forgot the name of the movie. I looked and looked for many years and eventually I found it again. I managed to find a torrent, I have no idea how to get this movie otherwise, but it is a treasure of a movie.

Very fun and funny, the culture is different than my own and I don't really know much about it so it was a very good setting for this comedy with surreal moments. There are several surprising scenes and many scenes that I could not forget. It is both kind of sad and also good that there are such treasures hidden and unknown to the general western audience.

If you get the ability to watch this movie then you should.

Russia closes the "feel-good fluff" gap

[Art Snob · 19 January 2000]

I caught this "tragicomedy" from the Russian republic of Tadjikistan on the final weekend of the 1999 Toronto Film Festival, and was surprised at its broad appeal and easy accessibility. The setup is this: a petite girl in her late teens named Mamlakat mysteriously gets seduced and impregnated by someone she hears (but never gets a full look at) on a full moon night when a touring troupe of actors has flown into her small town for a performance of one of Shakespeare's plays. Adding considerable stress to her plight is the fact that her gruff-but-lovable father is widowed and finding it increasingly difficult to support her older brother, a former soldier who suffered permanent brain damage in battle and is now the town idiot.

When the girl reveals her condition to her father, he's determined to find the responsible party, and there's considerable mirth as the family of three tours south central Russia in an attempt to locate the actor by attending plays and having Mamlakat try to identify the voice. The film has a lot of beautiful landscapes (reminiscent of those in THE ENGLISH PATIENT), the production values are excellent, the pacing never drags, there are many laughs, and the three leads are extremely well-cast. (The idiot brother, BTW is played by Moritz Bleibtreu, the dim bulb boyfriend in RUN LOLA RUN. He's excellent -- a bit like Harpo Marx with a limited vocabulary -- but MAN ... he'd better start playing some swifter characters SOON if he wants to avoid typecasting!)

My main cavil: For a film from this exotic a locale, it's just a tad too WESTERN in its sensibilities and techniques. Director Bakhtiyar Khudojnazarov has obviously been a keen student of western popular entertainment. LUNA PAPA is like seeing proven Hollywood crowd-pleasing conventions effectively transplanted to a completely different culture, and I'm not sure that this is necessarily a good thing. There's no questioning that the movie's far more accessible to western audiences as a result, though.

The film didn't have an American distributor at the time of its Toronto screening, but that should definitely change come Oscar time. This is EXACTLY the kind of good-natured, sentimental, non-groundbreaking, non-controversial, Hollywood-reverential movie (think KOLYA) that AMPAS loves to reward in the foreign language category. And there's an added bonus that Hollywood stands to reap for rewarding it: right-wing religious conservatives who are always blaming the entertainment industry for everything will simply LOVE the film's handling of the abortion issue!