Evanston: MONGOL; gnome
Evanston: MONGOL; gnome
I don’t know what I expected from Sergei Bodrov’s film, MONGOL, which could have been called TRIALS OF YOUNG GENGHIS, but whatever it was, I got much more.
Filmed in Inner Mongolia and Kazakhstan with the cooperation of several governments, MONGOL received good reviews and an Oscar nomination for best foreign film of 2007. I checked and the award that year went to a German film, THE COUNTERFEITERS, which I haven’t seen and just put in my Netflix queue. If it is better than MONGOL, it must be very good indeed.
Not far into MONGOL I was struck by how beautifully it was filmed, lovely steppe landscape after lovely landscape contrasting with the quick violence of 12th Century Asian life.
When Temujin, the boy who would become Genghis Khan, was nine, his father, who was then khan, the tribal chieftain, was poisoned.
Before gaining his rightful place, Temujin was a captive, an outcast, a slave, and he, his mother and siblings, lived in poverty.
Running through the movie is a love story as epic as Temujin’s rise to power. Perhaps a total invention, it is nevertheless pleasing.
I read that MONGOL was intended to be the first of a trilogy, but that filming, which took more than a year, was so difficult, that Bodrov decided to combine the projected last two movies into one, THE GREAT KHAN, was was supposed to be released this year. I don’t believe it has reached the U.S. yet. When it does I will not miss it.
MONGOL is an epic epic.
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On a sunny, clear sky, high pressure morning I finally walked down to the lake I am looking forward to sailing next summer. Temperature 15ºF/-10ºC.
Where the four or five inches of snow that have fallen in the past week have not been cleared from sidewalks, they have been compressed into ice. A light dusting last night provided some traction.
To the north the lake was frozen. To the south open water.
The photo is of ice over broken pilings from a series of what I assume were barriers to drifting beach sand.
I’m not sure it will be noticeable on this scale, but the one left of center looks like a frowning gnome.
Not a day for sailing.
Saturday, December 18, 2010