Steppe Man Film Difficulty Ranking: 2
Unfortunately Steppe Man isn’t one of the best films you are going to see. It’s a bit predictable in parts and seems ignorantly sexist. However, if you like camels and myth, or if you’re trying to complete a film tour of the Caucasus and need to tick of Azerbaijan, give it a watch. Step (no pun intended) into the world of the Steppe Man.
From: Azerbaijan, Asia
Watch: Trailer, Vimeo
Next: Australia, Tarzan, Timbuktu
The Breakdown
The first thing we see in Steppe Man is the harsh landscape. It looks dry and dusty, without much sign of green plant life. However, there is a large herd of camels, looked after by a young boy and his father – the Steppe men.
After the boy’s father helps deliver a baby camel in the middle of a rain storm, he tells his son a bed time story to help him get to sleep. It’s a story of a Steppe Man that falls asleep on a rock in the middle of the desert and wakes up next to a beautiful woman. They fall in love, before after a short time, the woman transforms into a bird and flies away.
After the bed time story, the films progresses around 20 years. The young boy is now the man of the house, as his father has become old and frail. The house, landscape, and camels all look the same – he’s following in the footsteps of his father to become the new Steppe Man. Within a few scenes, the father dies and his son carries his body into town to be prepared for burial. It’s on his journey to the town that we first see signs of modernity (cars and roads) that allows us to place the setting within the 21st century.
Steppe Man’s Beautiful Woman
However, access to modernity doesn’t give you a happier life, as shown in a young woman being abused by her husband by the side of a road. The woman decides to run away into the desert and ends up sleeping outside Steppe Man’s house. Even though he tells her to go away, she decides to tidy his house, cook his meals, and help with the camels. Obviously she’s meant to be the Steppe Man’s beautiful woman that appears from nowhere, just like the woman in the bed time story his father used to tell him. Unfortunately her role is confined to domesticity. Even though she escapes from a bad marriage, she ends up giving herself up to become the domestic woman of Steppe Man’s life.
What to Watch Next
If you’re a fan of love stories between a man of the wild and a ‘modern’ woman, check out Australia from Baz Luhrmann and Tarzan. Just like Steppe Man, both these films feature modern women that fall for men raised in the wild.
Or if you’re looking for more films featuring herdsmen living in dry landscapes, check out Timbuktu and Theeb. Timbuktu features one herdsman trying to get by in Mali despite the growing extremist presence. Theeb features a young boy in Jordan who leaves his nomadic family with his brother to search for water.
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