Last Holiday opens with pictures of May Day in 1979 in Alma Ata, the capital of the Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. A voice narrates the happy faces of the citizens as they march across the great square. 'They are proud of achieving their five-year plan. The bond between the brethren peoples of our land cannot be broken.' This propaganda sets the tone of the drama by Amir Karakulov.

The spectator knows that things were not like that. One year later, the Russians were to get bogged down in the war in Afghanistan and Gorbachev was to come to the top of the political deck of cards.

Last Holiday tells the story of three friends at the start of their Spring holiday. They have a party with music by the Beatles, they drink vodka, smoke and take drugs. They are not bad kids: Valera, Karim and Jacob. But after their party, things get out of hand. They break into the canteen of the famous highland ice-rink where the Soviets broke their skating records and steal an electric guitar. Valera takes the guitar home with him. When his father finds out, he warns the police. The detectives assume for the sake of convenience that Valera is part of a criminal organisation and beat him up. The severely wounded boy is thrown out of the police car outside town.

His friends want to punish the father, but kill him by accident. Then they

hide Valera in an apartment building and go looking for painkillers for him.

In recent years the festival has screened the two previous films by Karakulov: Woman between Two Brothers and The Dove's Bell-ringer, as well as work by his neighbour Ermek Shinarbaev. There is no such thing as a typically Kazakhstan film style. The population of Alma Ata, partly local Central Asian, partly 'import' Russians and Jews, is reflected in their work. The influence of the West is great, but in cinematographic terms, the Orient seems more influential still. Karakulov films in meticulously lit and framed shots, often from 60 centimetres off the ground from the "Ozu Perspective". He empties his frame: he waits with the next scene until people have left the shot. Objects sometimes look like extras, lonely witnesses of the drama of adolescence. His love for detail does not impede the story anywhere.

It is no coincidence that 'Last Holiday' is situated in 1979: in retrospect Karakulov offers a counterweight to the propaganda footage that his compatriots might be inclined to believe again in hard times. It is the unmasking of the nostalgic 'we were happy then' feeling that someone may easily feel when looking at old pictures. One of the three friends, it becomes clear at the end, is walking among the happy faces on the May Day parade. GD