Issue 74 (2021) |
Nikita Arzhakov: Tygyn Darkhan, 2020 reviewed by Olga Kim © 2021 |
Tygyn Darkhan adds an epic scale to what is now widely known as the Sakha cinema boom (Dolin, Savvina). The film is a big budget ethno-national epic about the eponymous legendary figure who struggles to unite Sakha people at the turn of the 16th century, right before the region become a tributary of Muscovy Russia. While tracing the struggles of Tygyn Darkhan and his numerous family members, the film features captivating and brutal battle scenes, ethnographic excursions to the medieval everyday life and rituals of the Sakha people, and stunningly beautiful landscapes.
Like many other productions of the Sakha Republic, the film is shot in local language, targets primarily local audiences, features natural landscapes and the spirituality of the region, and implements elements of genre cinema. Unlike other Sakha films, Tygyn Darkhan boasts unprecedented production values and regional engagement. The only Sakha film with a higher budget is Andrei Borisov’s By the Will of Genghis Khan (Taina Chingiz Khaana, 2009), but that was an international co-production and targeted international audiences. Tygyn Darkhan was commissioned and fully funded by the government of the Republic of Sakha. The film budget—255 million rubles (approximately USD 3.5 million)—was broadly conceived as a regional investment. Part of the budget was used to buy equipment and establish a sound recording studio, which will be subsequently used at Sakhafilm studio. The film’s shooting took place across nine different regions of the republic; over ten thousand locals participated in the production; six thousand out of those participated as extras. Historians and anthropologists of the region provided their expertise in the design of sets and costumes. In this regard, the characterization of Sakha cinema as “a modern form of folklore, a way of national self-expression with the use of modern technologies” (Savvina 2017) seems to describe the production of Tygyn Darkhan particularly well. Only this time, this “modern form of folklore” grew in scale thanks to the regional government’s generous funding. Calling Tygyn Darkhan a modern form of folklore also allows us to illuminate a peculiar status of this film, which is neither an auteur project nor a purely commercial enterprise, but rather a popular project of creating an image of the ethno-national self.
The film is based on the novel Tygyn Darkhan (1993) by prominent Sakha writer Dalan (the pen name of Vasilii Iakovlev). The time of the novel’s publication is worth pointing out: like Tygyn Darkhan’s own time, it coincides with a turbulent period in the region’s history and the rise of national awareness. According to the director Nikita Arzhakov—a veteran Sakha filmmaker, known for Lodger (1994), Cranes Over the Lake Ilmen (2005), Aanchik (2006), Sniper Sakha (2010), The Marvelous Time (2013), among others—the idea for the film was conceived shortly after the publication of the novel but came to fruition only after more than two decades.
The main character of both the novel and the film, Tygyn Darkhan is a semi-historical and semi-mythological figure featured in historical sources and folk tales of the Sakha people. A warrior chief known for his brutality and leadership during a turbulent period for various tribes of the region, Tygyn Darkhan remains a controversial figure. While the film attempts to preserve the ambiguity of this legendary figure, it ultimately emphasizes his unifying mission and role in awakening national consciousness on the cusp of the modern era.
The film’s ambition of ethno-national self-representation on an epic scale largely succeeds. Meticulously crafted costumes and sets, thoughtful representation of folk customs and rituals, and breathtaking Siberian landscapes all contribute to a sense of authenticity of this period drama. Particularly compelling and seemingly effortlessly recreated are the scenes of human interaction with nature. The recurring motif of a shaman as a mediator between the two worlds adds mystical cohesion to the interactions between humans and the surrounding nature.
Less coherent and more puzzling are the film’s dramaturgy and rhythm. To a certain extent, the task of understanding the plot and the characters may be particularly challenging for the audiences unfamiliar with the legendary stories surrounding Tygyn. In that sense, the film forecloses the possibility of full comprehension to a non-local audience. But the difficulty in comprehension stems not simply from the exclusionary logic of the film’s storytelling.
For a two-and-a-half-hour film, the relationships between the multiple characters and their motivations remain underdeveloped and confusing. The awkward rhythm between the various shots and a few unjustified drone shots—however beautiful the landscapes they capture may be—disrupt the flow of the film and may puzzle the viewer. My suspicion is that these shortcomings stem from the unfortunate decision to shoot this story simultaneously as a feature-length film for theatrical release and a mini-series for television. The practice of shooting footage simultaneously for a film and a TV series is not uncommon in recent Russian productions but it often comes at the cost of quality, which affects both formats. Big budget historical action dramas are among the most common examples of such practice—Admiral (2009), The Dawns Here Are Quiet (A zori zdes’ tikhie, 2015), Tobol (2019), Union of Salvation (Soiuz spasenie, 2019), but contemporary melodramas such as Jetlag (2021), have also been shot simultaneously for two formats. The practical reasons for such decision are understandable, but as a result the film suffers from incoherent dramaturgy and lack of inner rhythm. On top of that, the use of melodramatic tunes characteristic of television dramas and occasionally exaggerated post-production coloring suited more for a fairy tale do not help in bringing plausible cohesion to the film.
Despite all these shortcomings, Tygyn Darkhan is a sincere and fairly well-made historical epic aimed at ethno-national self-representation and popularization of the little-known past of the people of Sakha before the region became a part of the Russian empire. The timing of the film’s release was unfortunate as it coincided with the onset of the pandemic. Nonetheless, it was well received by the local audiences and is projected for a wider release across other regions of Russia, Central Asia, and China. After its release, the film received three awards at the All-Russia Film Festival of Historical Films Veche and was nominated for the Best Art Director at the Nika Award.
Olga Kim
Williams College
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Works Cited
Dolin, Anton. 2017. “Yakut Miracle” in Sakha Cinema: The World of Mysterious Nature and Myth. Eds. Sergei Anashkin, Sardana Savvina, and Jin Park. BIFF, 17–38.
Savvina, Sardana. 2017 “Cinema in Yakutia, or Sakha-Cinema” KinoKultura 57.
Tygyn Darkhan, 2020
Color, 145 minutes
Language: Sakha
Director: Nikita Arzhakov
Script: Nikita Arzhakov, Vladimir Kuz'min, based on the novel by Dalan (Vasilii Iakovlev)
Cinematography: Iurii Berezhnev
Art Director: Piotr Boiakin
Costumes: Dariia Dmitrieva
Cast: Timur Khasanov, Irina Alibekova, Yevgenii Meliadin, Marina Kuzovleva, Shamil' Daitov
Producers: Vera Filippova
Production: Sakhafilm Studio
Nikita Arzhakov: Tygyn Darkhan, 2020 reviewed by Olga Kim © 2021 |