From Kazakhstan and the Red Sea Festival comes director Eldar Shibanov’s Mountain Onion, a feel-good comedy that manages to feel good despite dealing with infidelity, divorce and the disappearance of children. With its striking visuals and vibrant colour palette, the movie gives off strong Wes Anderson vibes. Specifically Moonrise Kingdom, as the story is also led by two young kids (brother and sister this time) and takes place mostly in lush green wide open outdoor spaces. If you’re not a Wes Anderson fan, don’t worry, this movie nevers gets grating thanks to the sincere emotional connections the family shares (I like Wes Anderson for the record but understand why some people might not).
Mountain Onion opens with young Jabai (Esil Amantai) slapping faces and getting slapped himself. It’s a friendly competition with other kids for money. Jabai has Ronaldo Nazario’s exact same haircut from the 2002 World Cup, a kind of triangular dome shape covering only the very front of his scalp. One of his opponents cries after a slap. Crying from physical pain is unacceptable. Tears from emotional pain seem to be alright though as we learn this other boy’s father is very ill.
Jabai’s sister (Amina Gaziyeva) is frequently by his side, whether it’s wanting to get in on boyish activities like the slapping or selling green onions on the side of the road to help the family. Their parents look like grown up replicas of their kids. Their father Aybeck (Kuantai Abdimadi) is a sensitive soul who wants to save the world by collecting recycling on the back of his three-wheeled truck-like vehicle. He crams his wife and kids into the back with the bags of plastic bottles. They also cram into a yurt because he has not provided them an actual house. In a visual metaphor that would be groaningly obvious if it weren’t so comedically self aware, Aybeck struggles to build constantly crumbling walls to shelter his family. He desperately throws mud at the walls hoping something will stick.
Their mother Lasta (Laura Tursunkanova) is fed up with him. She presses him early on to sign bright yellow divorce papers. The papers get folded and tucked into pockets over and over. She herself wears a stunning orange leather bodysuit for a good chunk of the movie. Everyone’s style is on point, even when barely dressed. This includes Vitya (Sanjar Madi) who looks like a mid-2000s Johnny Depp in both hairstyle and fashion accessories. Vitya saunters through the movie with confidence and worldliness thanks to the big red shiny transport truck he drives to China and other places. In terms of both actual size and masculinity, this truck dwarfs Aybeck’s little three-wheeler.
The truck was a rockin’, and unfortunately for young Jabai, he came a knockin’. He catches his mother and Vitya post-coitus. This incites Jabai and his sister to set off on a journey to get Golden Viagra for their father to stave off the divorce once and for all and save the family.
The viagra doesn’t end up fixing things but their disappearance does bring their parents closer. The movie manages to make everything feel okay and forgivable. We don’t hate the mother for cheating. We know the kids will make it through their adventure mostly unscathed. They threw a lot of mud against the wall and enough stuck to it to bring them all back together.
The boy-slapping opening of the film exposed masculinity for the game it is. The game continues early on as Aybeck and other adult men take turns testing their knockout power on a boxing arcade machine. His kids seek to restore his virility with magical pills. He loses some tests of masculinity like inadequately providing for his family and getting cuckolded. But for all his troubles, in the end he gets rewarded by getting to punch a cop in the face with no repercussions. Oh and he gets his kids back and salvages his marriage.
Mountain Onion shows that life like masculinity should be fun and not taken too seriously. That is if you want to enjoy it as much as possible. This movie was very enjoyable and good.
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