AllMovie

Graduating from the widely-acclaimed short subject allegory Apple (the multi-layered and humorous tale of a man picking berries on snowy terrain) to narrative feature form, Abai Kulbai's Strizh hones in on the contemporary youth of Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. At the center of the story stands Ainur, an adolescent girl adrift in a hopelessly confusing world. A veritable social pariah at school, shunned by her peers, she fares little better at home, where her single mother devotes far more attention to her alcoholic lover than to the needy Ainur. While the young woman finds two sources of solace - a close relationship with her father and a tight bond with best girlfriend Asel - the latter comes to an abrupt and painful end when Asel and her mom unjustly accuse Ainur of a horrible deed - thus dramatically increasing the girl's sense of social isolation. Kulbai carefully balances his narrative between a sense of universality and a culturally-specific look at the younger generation of modern Kazakhstan.