Three orphaned siblings, who are about to be kicked out on to the street, take a bus to the outer suburbs and arrive on an empty plain. There, a small portion of land belongs to them. If they do not build a house there, the government will take the land away. Accordingly, they start a double life consisting of stealing supplies and tools from nearby construction sites during the night and building a house during the day. The Constructors wordlessly cries in despair. It empties hopeless moments in silence and fills them with sound effects all the while giving the conflicting sense that the more silent its surface is, the louder it cries deep down. The story slowly develops, adding several layers of tragedy as it proceeds. The long takes and the wide-angled, black-and-white images look beautiful. Adilkhan Yerzhanov depicts the devastated people’s will to survive to the level of being noble in his strong and uncompromising style. He is, after all, inventing the aesthetic of misery. (KANG Sowon)