Mongol

Filmed in the arid plains of the Far East, the movie is a visual spectacle worthy of the ticket just for the scenery itself. The story board is based on the theoretical development of one of the ancient world most enigmatic tyrants, Genghis Khan. Temudjin’s (Genghis Khan’s family name) conception arrived not without the weight of cross-tribal relations. His father, the Khan of the tribe, stole a woman from a foreign tribe. To appease for this transgression his first born must marry a woman of the offended tribe. Against his father’s internal wish, Temudjin chooses a nubile girl, Oelun, from within the clan. The story expands the lustful and romantic longing of the two characters to reunite. With the insubstantial insertions of the romantic knots to secure the tale’s march onwards, the film follows the transformation of Temudjin, a homeless boy, into the pachyderm he was destined to become. It is clear that Temudjin would not have reached the grandeur prognosticated if it were not for his wife, Oelun, who sacrificed her purity twice in order to save his life.

After the casual murder of the father, the tribe’s Khan, Temudjin is kept in isolation and subjugated from the rest of the tribes. His resolve to survive combined with his motility allow him to become independent of any tribe. A remarkable chapter in the film has Temudjin, finally enjoying time with his family, explaining the beauty of a language. Here is a potential maudlin scene if you remember the solitary years the little boy endured without a person to address. Really the language is ugly, but the fact that he can say “meat” to somebody else is proper cause of celebration.

The obsequious camera of Sergei Bordov, studies the precious topography of the Plains. The panorama has not been this imperative to a films integrity since the last westerns, where the desert was as much a character as the gunslinger. The plains of the Far East exhibit an exquisite spectacle in the development of the film. They effortless beauty is as puzzling as Oelin, Temidjin’s wife. If the panorama were to be sloughed off and replaced by another, the film will lose weight. The fading steps in the sand of the monk trudging along a tempestuous desert hill; the forlorn backpack of the monk set against earth’s erosion; the cavernous shrine were the thunder-god resides embodied in a lone wolf; or the wetland were an unpretentious river sliders into the horizon leaving rivulets as it navigates the wet-land.
All characters are susceptible to the land. During the winter, they suffer a shortage of food. While trekking across the desert their skin desiccates and their lips part. There is nowhere to vanish when a pursued in the flat plains. If at night it thunders, there is no place to hide. When the final battle ends and the thunder hammers the humans to their haunches, the only figure that emerges tall is Temudjin on his horse. When asked by his brother, who is also his nemesis, why he doesn’t fear the thunder if every Mongol fears it, “I had nowhere to hide.” And so the legend of the fearless tyrant stems from his nomadic childhood in the green, unforgiving and torrential plains of the Mongolia.

The other forgotten aptitude of films that Sergei Bodrov resurrects is well-constructed and enticing fighting scenes. The blades of the Mongols are stern against the human flesh, quick to open a gash and kill. The war zone is meant for quick deadly blows. Movies have jettisoned our good judgment of a sword battle. A tidal wave of medieval-themed sagas and powder-action jaded our blood-thirsty nature with the unnecessary slashing or shooting of an opponent at the expense of the facial expressions of the million-dollar sex symbol. The battle scenes are few but in their spare use, the director, the cameraman, the choreographer, and the computerized effects, manage to display the artistry in the mutilation of an enemy. Their work rhythmically follows the sounds generated by the motion of the swift blades.

During the course of the film, Temudjin encounters a plethora of obstacles, that postpone and provide material to solidify his persona as he inevitably escalates to absolute power, the most determined of them being his tyrannical and power-hungry “blood brother”. The film surrenders no answers to whether the obstacles strengthen his character or simply delay destiny. Before Temudjin’s hike to power even begins, the spiritual characters of the film (the apologetic Buddhist priest and the village elderly sorcerer) sense the greatness contained within the broken body. These predictive men remind us, as Temudjin suffers, that the destiny of most men is a narrow, but cozy corridor to the end, whereas the fortune of great men is set against landscapes of seclusion and infinite reflection. Although not a film replete with symbolisms, I could surmise the attempt of the film to modestly condense the gyrations of greatness by depicting the torment and loneliness which all the great human spirits must surpass to become legends.