The Seventh Bullet

One of the very finest contributions to the “Ostern” (Eastern) genre—the Soviet answer to the American Western, generally set in far-flung regions of the USSR—Khamraev’s ominous and evocative film, co-written by occasional Tarkovsky collaborators Friedrich Gorenstein and Andrei Konchalovsky, takes place in the chaotic aftermath of the Russian Civil War. Facing defections in his regiment and a challenge from anti-Soviet Islamic basmachi rebels, Bolshevik commander (Suymenkul Chokmorov) follows a young local woman (Dilorom Kambarova) on a perilous mission into the heart of the resistance in Tajikistan’s Isfara Valley, a region of barren and foreboding majesty as photographed by cameraman Aleksandr Pann.