Bikechess — Assel Aushakimova

Bikechess is a strange name for Assel Aushakimova’s latest work. The scene that gives the Kazakh film its name comes in the beginning, with the television newswoman Dina (Saltanat Nauruz) reporting on the invention of an absurd new sport called “bikechess,” meant to combine the physical exertion required of cycling with the intellectual requirements of chess. Quite literally, the new game is simply the two activities smashed together: the two players ride exercise bikes with a chess board in between them. After this, Aushakimova never returns to the sport, and nor should she have. The English title instead speaks to the unique absurdities of life in modern Kazakhstan as observed by a jaded TV journalist and as the stories she reports on — the film’s main point of continuity — grow in their incredulity. From a scientist claiming life on Earth started in what’s now called Kazakhstan to a somewhat mystifying staged event involving rabbits, the world Aushakimova builds is so strange that if it weren’t for her employment of a social naturalism style, Bikechess almost wouldn’t make any sense.

Continue reading at In Review Online.