Mongol

Wednesday night – after Vincent had already seen one movie at the movie theater and another at Anime Club – and after we’d had Skyline Chili for supper – Vincent and I went and saw a movie Stephanie had already seen last week: the Academy Award Best Foreign Film-nominated “Mongol,” which seemed to be a joint Russian-Kazakh-Mongolian affair/production. The movie presents the story of the childhood and rise to power of the man who became Genghis Khan. This movie was of added interest to us because of Stephanie’s student from Mongolia. The movie is rather bloody, but I was very impressed both by the technical virtuosity of the movie and it’s good story. It’s at once a romance, a coming-of-age story, and revenge/war movie. It’s interesting to see Asians as all of these warriors. The movie reminds me in places of Arnold Schwarznegger’s first movie, “Conan the Barbarian,” which I saw with Linda, Andrew, et al. Stephanie pointed out that the woman in the movie is very resourceful (and so she is). Perhaps one of the most striking parts of the story involves a Buddhist monk who demonstrates great faith. In addition to perhaps feeling sorry for the protagonist, during one of his long imprisonments, the monk is so convinced that the protagonist will leave the Chinese city where he is imprisoned and then come back with an army and ransack the city. So he tries to go for help, even practically driving himself to death in a challenging effort both to save the protagonist and to persuade the protagonist in turn to spare the monk’s monastery – which overlooks the city and has many ancient writings. Instead of simply a bloodthirsty nut, the man who became Genghis Khan is portrayed as a family man, a devoted husband, and someone who won the allegiance of his officers and other troops by being fair and even-handed with them – he’s also here a bit of a Moses – a Law giver.

-- Perry