No noon post today because I got home too late to act on my new resolution to write posts ahead of time. I was out late because I was watching Mongol, the first of three movies recounting the life of Genghis Khan.
The movie can be summed up in one word: Magnificent. It was definitely one of the best historical epics of recent years, and much better than fare such as Alexander, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, and 300. Shot on location in Kazakhstan, the scenery is almost a character by itself, a very beautiful yet alien-looking world that envelops the humans in the story, giving a true sense of endless expanses, without boundaries or permanent settlements.
The movie covers the life of Temudgin (I use the spellings employed by the film; there are a number of ways to transliterate Mongol names), Genghis Khan’s given name, up to the point when he unified the Mongol tribes. The actual unification is not shown in any detail, probably a good thing since it took some 20 years and was a rather tedious affair. Instead, the movie focuses on the relationships that most affected his early years: with his father Esugei, his wife Borte, his blood-brother Jamukha, and his enemy Targutai. The acting is excellent and all of the characters are well rounded and believable. The producers seem to have taken special care to portray the Mongols and their neighbors as real societies, not as stereotypes or cartoon characters. One can easily believe that these are real people operating in a real place, something not all historical movies can claim.
I can’t speak in detail about the movie's adherence to history, as this is not a subject I am expert in. The broad details seemed plausible, although there was an idealized feel to the whole plot, which isn’t surprising since much of what we know about Genghis Khan was passed down via oral tradition. I would compare the overall feel to the Viking sagas, which also have believable characters who act in very human and comprehensible ways, yet move in a society without disease, deformity, filth or fatigue. “Noble” feelings such as bravery, loyalty, cleverness and skill in battle are emphasized and the hero (Temudgin) does not seem to get tired or lose hope. A comparison to the Homeric epics is also appropriate, except that the supernatural is not a main element to the story, apart from a couple sequences illustrating Temudgin’s relationship with the Mongol sky god, Tengri. I don’t think these elements diminish the movie, although they do mean it can’t be treated as a documentary; despite them, the story rings truer than the usual Hollywood fare.
Pedantic note: I only learned relatively recently that I had been pronouncing the English name of Genghis Khan wrong for most of my life. I knew that the Mongolian name was generally transliterated “Chinggis” by modern authors, but for some reason it didn’t register that “Genghis” was also meant to be pronounced with a soft ‘G’ as in ‘general’ or ‘generation’ instead of a hard ‘G’ as in ‘gun’ or ‘gang’. As noted above, most English words beginning with ‘ge’ have a soft ‘G’. I don’t know how the hard ‘G’ pronunciation got started. I choose to blame John Wayne, who turned in a memorably awful performance as Temudgin in 1956s The Conqueror. "Genghis Khan" itself simply means "Universal Khan."
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Movie Review: Mongol
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Hey Scott, good to see you back.
While I can't comment on the mongols or that movie I don't think you can say that the sagas "move in a society without disease, deformity, filth or fatigue".
Disease is in fact well known, there are people dying of old age and disease all the time. The same is true for deformity (just think of Egill Skallagrímsson!). Fatigue is also mentioned several times. I can't cite an example off the top of my head now but there are some instances of people losing a hólmganga or other fight because they're getting tired.
I'll grant you the filth. I can't remember anyone being called excessively filthy. But that's because they all were, of course.
I just remembered that Haraldr hárfagr was called Haraldr lúfa before he cut his hair. That word can mean something like "with unkempt, filthy hair".
Matt,
I take your point and my statement was a bit too strong. The contrast I was trying to draw (retreating to an area I know better), was between epic such as Homer and a more realistic depiction of life. You have people with deformities in Homer as well (think of Thersites), but in that case the deformity reinforces a specific plot point. In general, though, the characters are larger-than-life with perhaps a weakness or two thrown in (Achilles' pride, Ajax' dimwittedness, etc.)
Ebert made a similar observation in his review. As I noted, I think the way the story is told is defensible, but its limitations should be recognized.
You're probably right, Scott, that deformities, etc. are mentioned in the sagas as a plot point but I would argue that this is not because the author wanted to place them in a world where such things are uncommon but because they were so common that they needed to be mentioned only when they influenced the story in some way. My point, I guess, is that the sagas, unlike Homer's work, don't try to be epic except when it comes to a few main characters (once again Egil comes to mind).
What I wanted to say originally (and I seem to have failed to bring that across) is that in the sagas it's not (as you wrote)"believable characters who act in very human and comprehensible ways, yet move in a society without disease, deformity, filth or fatigue" but rather the opposite: heroic, superhuman characters who move in a world very similar to the one the author knew in his time.
Post a Comment