37 Uses for a Dead Sheep

Believe it or not, the Kirghiz people who originated, centuries ago, in Pamir do actually know of 37 uses for a dead sheep. These are regaled to us, periodically, as directors Ben Hopkins and Muhammed Ekber Kutlu - a local man, mix reconstructions of significant events from the recent past with some candidly entertaining interviews with the latest generation as they finally find themselves settled, safely, in Turkey. We start with a graphic that shows just how far these peoples have had to travel as they found themselves driven from their homelands by a succession of Soviet then Chinese communists before temporarily residing in Afghanistan then Pakistan before being offered their current home. It's odd that after all of these existential trials that have decimated the population of both people and livestock it's only now the they face their biggest challenge of all. Sustaining their culture and traditions in the face of an evacuating youth who have or want little truck with the ways of the past. The dramatisations give us some clues as to just how tough these lives must have been at the high altitudes in which they and their herds of yaks thrived - some 12,000 feet up with a mere two months of summer, the winter winds howling; their leather yurts heated only by burning dried dung and soldiers constantly trying to indoctrinate them. It's not hard to see why the current generation see little sentimental in revisiting that subsistence, hand-to-mouth, existence that really does know how to optimise the live-giving resources of their hardy animals. There are plenty of characters here, including one old gent who goes into (frankly unwelcome) detail as to some early Kirghiz dental techniques, and the narrator/director Hopkins provides us with a gently engaging but respectful history of a proud and stoic people who have endured much in the search to remain free. Clearly there is no going home now for these people, but it's astonishing how little bitterness and rancour they seem to have.