CoMo No. 31: Mongolia (January, 2025)

[sally]

[Jürka]

as the picture above ↑ suggests, my main goal (for this month) is to rewatch (i believe i watched it long ago) “Johanna D'Arc of Mongolia” (Ulrike Ottinger, 1989) and rewatch-n-watch (during my first attempt (some years ago) i got distracted somewhere in the middle and never finished) “Taiga” (Ulrike Ottinger, 1992).

since 2016 (since logging on KM), the only Mongolia-related film i watched was:
Lamas in the streets of Urga (Stéphane Passet, 1913, 2m)

starting point trivia...

It is assumed that the first cinematographic performances in Mongolia happened between 1903 and 1913, as private events for the prince Tögs-Ochiryn Namnansüren and the Jebtsundamba in the capital Urga.

After the socialist revolution, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party decided in its fifth congress of 1925 to use movies as an instrument of mass education. From 1926 on, mobile projection facilities would regularly show Soviet films to the Mongolian people. The first permanent cinema, Ard (ард, 'people') opened in the capital (now named Ulaanbaatar) in 1934. Eventually, every aimag center would have fixed cinemas, and every sums of Mongolia or negdel would have a mobile cinema. In the 1990s, many cinemas, fixed and mobile alike, closed down or reduced activities.

The national film studios, Mongol Kino, were founded in 1935, with Soviet technical assistance.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I believe I've only ever seen a single bonafide Mongolian film. The Two Horses of Genghis Khan (2009) by Byambasuran Davaa, and I thought it was lovely. A semi-documentary about a Pynchonian wild goose chase dealing with Mongolian music/folk history that may have been lost forever, but a very sweet and quiet film.

I don't remember it perfectly well, but there's a scene of someone composing a text message, and a group of men throwing her phone straight up into the air in hopes of getting a signal long enough to send the text before it comes back down to earth... and that's stuck with me. I've been meaning to check out Davaa's other work because I liked this one so much.

[Jürka]

Byambasuran Davaa

i see there are 4 films by him circulating, so i will try at least one. thx!

tho, starting this CoMo viewings by the historical/political “briefing”...

A Brief History of the World (Ep. 16): The Mongol Years (TTC, 2000, 29m) #CoMoMongolia

Peter N. Stearns, Ph.D. Professor, George Mason University, elaborates on the impact of the experience of either being invaded (China, Russia) or not being invaded (Japan, Europe, Africa) by Mongols (during the 13th and 14th centuries).

[sally]

the mongolian steppe was my fantasy holiday destination when i was a teen (subsequently realised this is probably because i had decided that it's largely empty of other people and thus you feel the deluded aggrandizement of a god surveying the vast territory that your eyes might be the only ones possessing there, typical pathetic teen reaction) right up until my holiday planning discovered that out there under my mighty skies i might have to have my period without hot or even running water available (in the days before uk docs were happy prescribing continuous pill) so that was the end of that.

the problem i have with the mongolian films that i can find is that a lot of the contemporary ones that have seeped into western film festival fodder are all really disgusting exotic patronising colonialist porn about nomadic people living in yurts (prelapsarian contrast from the modern 'western' world) whereas all the 50s & 60s soviet mongolian films (where not a single one has subtitles, despite existing in gorgeous restored prints on youtube) are all super modern with hardly any steppe in sight, and admit that yes, some people might live in cities and drive cars and be exploited for labour and have capitalist problems other than eagles and livestock etc, so much so that these films are hardly distinguishable from other 50s/60s soviet movies from other regions. (at least, i'm guessing, since without subtitles i can only scan through)

i'm sure both sides of that coin are equally misrepresentative fantasies, so am tempted to do a greg for at least a couple of films and watch the populist modern trash that mongolians make for themselves, of which it appears that at least some have subtitles.

but if anyone knows any experimental/arthouse mongolian directors that make films that aren't middle-brow film festival bait then please mention!

[Mario Gaborovic]

Ondog aka Egg is all covered in yellowish steppe...

[Jürka]

Tsogt taij (T. Khurlee, 1945) #CoMoMongolia

This film was made during the World War II in the first Mongolian film studio called 'Mongol Kino'. The film as directed by a Soviet director named Yury Tarich (1885-1967) who made the first Belorussian film in 1926. He worked as a artistic consultant and director between the years 1943-1946. During this time he made the famed Mongolian epic called "Tsogt taij". Although there were few Mongolian sound films existed before this production "Tsogt taij" was the most famous example of the Mongolian cinema up to that point and since. The man who worked as a director of photography was Jigjid Dejid (1919-1989) who would later become the greatest Mongolian director of the twentieth century.

Yury Tarich was credited as the chief art supervisor. And the man who credited as the main director of this film (in old Mongolian letters) was Luvsanjamts M., although he was in a sense a producer. Khurlee T. was at the time a chief director of the 'Mongol Kino' studios.

the main character of this epic dilogy is Tümengken Choghtu Khong Tayiji
→ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choghtu_Khong_Tayiji
the plot takes us into 17th century and the main problem of then-time Mongolia can be described as follows...

Choghtu Khong Tayiji, born Tümengken (1581-1637), was a ruler of the Khalkha Mongols. He expanded into Amdo (present-day Qinghai) to help the Karma sect of Tibetan Buddhism but was overthrown by Güüshi Khan, who supported the rival Geluk sect.



He submitted himself to Lingdan Khan, last grand khan of the Mongols. He took part in Lingdan's campaign to Tibet to help the Karma sect although Lingdan Khan died in 1634 before they joined together. But he pursued the campaign. In the same year he conquered the Tümed around Kokonor (Qinghai Lake) and moved his base there.

if you feel a bit lost (reading the plot premise), don’t worry.
this complicated constellation makes disoriented not only you (the reader of this review).
a viewer who tries to enter the plot on screen (speaking from my direct experience) has the same problem.
and, obviously ↓↓↓↓↓, the protagonists of the film are rather clueless about what’s going on as well.






therefore soon (to the great relief of everyone concerned) the complicated plot is simplified to a conflict of “red hatters” vs. “yellow hatters” (a concept that is much easier to follow).



a concept that is much easier to follow, if the filmmakers had access to full-color film stock.
honestly, if i was a politruk (soviet political commissar) entrusted with the supervision of this monochromatic didactic epic, i would definitely demand those red & yellow hats to become hand-colored!
but, anyway, if you are still a bit lost about who conflicts with whom, ultimately it doesn’t matter.
the main point of the film is not a conflict with the (evil/reptilian) other but a domestic treason.


you can be a bunch of quarreling magpies but if you are loyal to your motherland and fundamentally united, no hat fashion can defeat you.



and taking all of this a bit further...
who can be the most vulnerable element (to foreign interference) within the patriarchal (sexually repressed) society?
young alfas & incels!!
here, the main culprit is alfa (or the oldest son of the patriarch who is struggling with his unbridled libido).


if our patriarch were more enlightened, his son might get castrated (for his treason).
this film however follows the Soviet guidelines and thus the traitor is beheaded in showy public execution.

By request from Shamar Rabjampa he sent an army under his son Arslan to central Tibet in 1635. However, Arslan attacked his ally Tsang army. He met the fifth Dalai Lama and paid homage to Gelukpa monasteries instead of destructing them. Arslan was eventually assassinated by Choghtu's order.

The Geluk sect asked for help Törü Bayikhu (Güüshi Khan), the leader of the Khoshuud tribe of the Oirat confederation. In 1636 Törö Bayikhu led the Khoshuud and the Dzungars to Tibet. In the next year a decisive war between Choghtu Khong Tayiji and Törü Bayikhu ended in the latter's victory and Choght was killed.

after our main hero falls down slain, it’s not the end.
next moment he miraculously rises again (returning for a moment from the afterlife) and brings us from oblivion his fateful words...


→ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyombo_symbol

during the last shot (viz above ↑) a viewer is supposed to overlook that Soyombo (the ancient “symbol of freedom and independence”) was made to bear the heavy weight of the foreign & imperialist five-pointed star.

[Jürka]

Storm Over Asia AKA The Heir to Genghis Khan (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1928) #CoMoMongolia

Pudovkin’s last great silent work is, with Mother and The End of St. Petersburg, part of a loose trilogy of Pudovkin films about the awakening of revolutionary consciousness in the face of tyranny. In Soviet Central Asia during the Russian Civil War, a nomadic Mongol trapper, taken as a descendent of Genghis Khan, is set up as puppet ruler of Mongolia by British interventionist forces. Gradually, he comes to realize that he is being used to oppress his own people, and turns against the imperialists who control him.



A tour de force of luxuriant visuals,



hyperbolic symbolism,



ethnographic detail,



and virtuoso editing,



the film, a popular success at home and abroad, was criticized by Soviet officials for its ​“formalist indulgence.”

this post was supposed to be another sarcastic tirade about Soviet phantasmagoric storytelling...




... BUT i am speechless (& highly impressed)

[Jürka]

Impressions of Upper Mongolia (José Montes-Baquer, Salvador Dalí, 1976) #CoMoMongolia

The film is a tribute to the French writer Raymond Roussel (1877-1933), a forerunner of the Surrealists and much admired by them, who developed a formal system with which to generate literary inspiration out of puns and narrative references arising from these. Dalí saw Roussel as a precursor of his paranoiac-critical method and as an expression of his admiration conceived this experimental work in the form of a fantastic journey through Upper Mongolia.




Impressions of Upper Mongolia - Homage to Raymond Roussel brings together images of the recently opened Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, the house at Portlligat, and the happening in Granollers in 1974. The structure of the film is also articulated by the music, by the fable invented especially by the artist and by a sequence of hallucinatory images derived from the metal part of a fountain pen.




The imaginary journey conceived by Dalí revolves around the story of a Mongol princess who feeds her subjects powdered mushrooms, which produce hallucinations and stimulate them to paint. In the film, a scientific expedition is sent to Upper Mongolia to discover the huge white hallucinogenic mushroom, unknown in the West, which causes these effects in this civilization.

Power Point by Dali with paintings by Dali.

[Jürka]

The Sales Girl (Janchivdorj Sengedorj, 2021) #CoMoMongolia

Studious Saruul covers for her classmate at a basement sex shop run by the alluring, grumpy Katya, who takes Saruul under her wing and shows the young woman that there's more than just studying and that sex is fun, healthy, and empowering.

festival film (in 2023, it won the Audience Award at the Tartu Love FF Tartuff) with not a single yurt (urban Mongolia tale).
while for Salvador Dali or Ulrike Ottinger Mongolia is a dream destination, for a Mongolian youngster, the dream country (the cool place) is South Korea.

[Jürka]

Who are they?
They come from Mongolia.
They come from the north.
From east and west,
they gradually invade with success.


Mongols are coming.
Even if the Mongols come,
I’m not afraid.
I’m afraid.
Orders from the Kanto region.
Over the mountain, go forward.
Don’t hesitate to kill the enemy.
Attack the masts...
get on the enemy’s ships!

Nichiren and the Great Mongol Invasion (Kunio Watanabe, 1958) #CoMoMongolia

hero of this film is Nichiren (1222–1282) → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichiren
just like Christ-like Nichiren had to overcome many obstacles before establishing his new doctrine, so too do potential viewers have to overcome temptations that try to discourage them from watching this movie.

It's just an interesting film for weird people like me hahaha, I wouldn't recommend it to the average viewer.

Just don't, there are so many other movies you could be watching instead.

those brave souls who pass through these temptations can witness on screen the birth of a new belief (miracles included!).
Nichiren is one of the many founding figures who expanded the universal realm of nonsense with another doctrine claiming to reign supreme.


not everyone is excited about it.


but there are some (seldom) who can see the potential.
(btw. Nichiren’s original name was Rencho)


one of the aspects of Nichiren’s new doctrine (that’s being perceived as controversial by the establishment) is the stance “No!” to the question, “Are women truly devilish?”


thus you won’t be probably surprised to hear that what follows is more than an hour (of the film’s footage) of permanent Nichiren’s conflicts with the power (resulting in repeated Nichiren’s exiles).



whenever Nichiren goes into exile, his followers go nuts.


and whenever he goes into exile, he is on the brink of execution.
fortunately enough, heaven is on his side, and thus when the executioner raises his sword to chop off his head, Zeus Almighty uses this raised sword as a lightning rod and instead of Nichiren’s beheading we witness semi-electrocution of the executioner that brings his religious conversion.
(well, i am aware that readers of my reviews are probably already fed up with me labeling nearly all the narrative structures found in films as “phantasmagoric’ but what else to say about something alike ↓↑↓↑ ?!?!)



btw. there are a lot of masculine tears shed during the whole film!

Not really a lot of insight but a lot of crying men and women

Well I am not the type of person that thinks men cannot cry, but here I nearly think the only one not crying was the deputy shogun.

anyway...
the domestic political situation starts to change when (after the aforementioned hour of Mongol-less viewing) the Mongol fleet finally appears on the horizon. these ships are initially (of course!) perceived with a great deal of naivety (despite Nichiren’s repeated warnings based on the old prophecy).



not everyone is fooled tho.


despite these occasional prescient alarmists, a poor viewer has to withstand another half an hour of pointless political disputes until Mongols finally strike with full force and make the situation crystal clear (even to the slowwitted).

large tracts resemble a samurai story with hordes of warriors crisscrossing the screen at considerable speed with much sound and fury

when the film is nearly over, the time has come for another miracle.
Nichiren starts again invoking Zeus who sends another storm, powerful enough to destroy the whole invading fleet.



not going to try to ruin the hagiographic exaggeration (and again slip into calling something “phantasmagoric”) by nitpicking that if the invading fleet consisted of 100.000 warships and all the Mongols (100.000) were killed it means the whole crew of a single warship consisted of a single sailor.


last but not least, i must admit that during this whole grand finale (of the invading fleet being destroyed by the raging elements), i muted the original sound and played “Invaders Must Die” by Prodigy (i can wholeheartedly recommend this alternate happy end soundtrack).

This widescreen epic was produced at the height of the Cold War referring to the failed Mongol invasion as a metaphor for the threat of communism and reified an idealized image of Japan as historically resisting aggression from the Chinese mainland.

[Lencho of the Apes]

Nichiren looks v. impressive, Jiri. Downloading now!

[Jürka]

naturally, while watching this tale of Rencho, i thought of you.
but i didn’t dare to recommend

[Jürka]

Two Horses of Genghis Khan (Byambasuren Davaa, 2009) #CoMoMongolia

Singer Urna Chahar Tugchi travels from Inner to Outer Mongolia to search for the missing verses once engraved on her grandmother's beloved horse head violin, which was destroyed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It was her grandmother's wish for the violin to be restored and given back it's beautiful sound.

A semi-documentary about a Pynchonian wild goose chase dealing with Mongolian music/folk history that may have been lost forever, but a very sweet and quiet film.

i must admit that prior to watching this film i was not aware of the duality of the “Inner” & “Outer” Mongolia.
so, if anyone else needs a clarification then know that ”Inner Mongolia” or “Southern Mongolia” is part of China (or as a Sinocentric would say: part of the “Middle Country”), while “Outer Mongolia” is the Mongolia proper (or independent Mongolia).

Mongols constitute a significant minority [in Inner Mongolia] with over 4 million people, making it the largest Mongol population in the world (larger than that [3.6 million] of the country Mongolia).

Due to the perceived Sinocentric nature of the name “Inner Mongolia”, some Mongols outside of China, particularly those in the state of Mongolia, prefer the name “Southern Mongolia”. However, this name has not been adopted officially by any government bodies.

on the other hand, prior to watching this film, i was well aware of the beauty of nature in Outer Mongolia.
BUT i am still amazed by certain frames...



and last but not least...

I don't remember it perfectly well, but there's a scene of someone composing a text message, and a group of men throwing her phone straight up into the air in hopes of getting a signal long enough to send the text before it comes back down to earth...

[Jürka]

from unearthing the term & territory of “Inner Mongolia”, there is only a single step to unveiling its cinema (made in the outer studios of the generous Middle Country)...

Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland (Qian Yunda, Tang Cheng, 1964) #CoMoMongolia

This film is based on the true story that happened in the spring of 1964 on the Ulanqab Grassland in Inner Mongolia.

This film was made by Shanghai Animation Film Studio and is based on contemporary events in February, 1964. It’s a retelling of how Mongolian sisters Long Mei and Yurong, ages 11 and 8 respectively, successfully walked nearly 70 kilometers after having been surprised by a blizzard while grazing their father’s sheep. Both girls survived with severe frostbite.

The stars twinkling in the sky are many.
But they are not as many as our commune’s sheep.
The clouds floating in the sky are white.
But they are not as white as our commune’s wool.
Ah ah hoo hey.
Ah ah hoo hey.
They are not as white as our commune’s wool.
Ah ah hoo hey.

The flowers blooming on the grassland are many.
But they are not as many as our newly built workshops.
The deers in the hills are running fast.
But they are not as fast as our cars passing by.
Ah ah hoo hey.
Ah ah hoo hey.
They are not as fast as our commune’s cars.
Ah ah hoo hey.



Our beloved Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao!
The grassland is prospering under your sunshine.
Our honorable communist party, communist party!
The little herdsmen are growing under your instructions.
Our beloved Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao!
The grassland is prospering under your sunshine.
Our honorable communist party, communist party!
The little herdsmen are growing under your instructions.



Oh ice and snow, ice and snow, do melt down quickly.
Oh little grass, little grass, do sprout quickly.
Oh lambs, lambs, do grow up quickly.
Oh flocks, flocks, do expand quickly.
The livestock of the commune are big and strong.
They are the shining pearls in our palms,
and flowers in our hearts.

Oh our commune is prosperous and beautiful.
Oh our grassland is broad and vast.
We are the little hosts of the commune.
The commune is our home, oh our home.
We are growing up to be good herdsmen.
Learn from Uncle Lei Feng!
Love the party and love the country!

In order to protect the flock,
not afraid of blizzard
nor severe coldness.
Oh little sisters,
the beacon of revolution
is shining in your heart.

In the interest of collective property
not afraid of frostbite
nor hunger.
Oh little heroines
communism is glowing
in your mind.



Standing up to the ice and snow,
rooted from the vast land,
two red flowers are blooming in the snow.
Reaching up to the blue sky,
swinging the wings in the clouds,
two eagles are flying above the grassland.
Defeating the blizzard,
protecting the flock.
Oh little sisters,
brave and strong.
Brave and strong.
Face glowing with health.
The revolutionary successors are growing up.
Ah ah hoo hey.
Ah ah hoo hey.
The revolutionary successors are growing up.



The spring breeze blows gently
across the vast grassland.
The heroic deed
is told everywhere.
Wholehearted love for the country,
passion for the job.
Loving the collective
and willing to sacrifice themselves for it.
Sunshine fills the vast homeland.
Thousands of red flowers,
blooming all at once.
Blooming all at once.
Drums beating,
trumpets sounding,
the team of revolutionary successors is majestic.
Ah ah hoo hey.
Ah ah hoo hey.
The team of revolutionary successors is majestic.
The team of revolutionary successors is majestic.
The team is majestic.

i can promise (to our commune) that i will stick to the revolutionary CoMo posting with unwavering enthusiasm!

[Jürka]

Subaudition (Ikhbayar Shagdarsuren Urchuud, 2011) #CoMoMongolia

A young girl who lives in Ulaanbaatar is in crisis. She is totally disappointed by the idea of a social contract when she is in college.


But after several failures, she successfully created a relationship with someone. A someone who can share her ideologies with her. But she finds herself again having trouble communicating in terms of language. After several years, she eventually finds peace by rejecting idealism and grasping the power of rational thinking.

[rischka]

perhaps not mongolia but mongols are briefly featured in dziga vertov's a sixth part of the world













an interesting approach to the kaleidoscope that was the soviet socialist republics; too much animal cruelty for me however!

[Jürka]

The Silent Souls (Chinzorig Erdenebayar, 2018) #CoMoMongolia

A couple moves into a village, hoping to be together all the time, but not knowing they would discover hidden personalities and grow distant from each other


and eventually, they will have to decide whether to stay together or get separated.

painfully sublunary (agonizing tunes included)

[Jürka]

yesterday afternoon, i made a little stroll to the local (as if) steppes of Mongolia (or a local hilltop enclosure with 5 wild Przewalski’s horses).
Przewalski’s horse → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przewalski%27s_horse

Przewalski’s horse: Back from the brink
→ https://edition.cnn.com/world/gallery/p ... index.html

But by the 20th century, the horses, named after Nikolai Przewalski, a Russian explorer who brought a skull of the horse to Russia from Central Asia in 1878, were facing extinction. According to Prague Zoo, which is heavily involved in conservation efforts, the species reached its lowest point in 1945, with only 31 remaining in captivity. In 1969, a Mongolian scientist made what some thought would be the last ever sighting of a Przewalski’s horse in the wild.

In the early 20th century, the population of Przewalski’s horses collapsed. According to Prague Zoo, by 1945 there were just two prosperous breeding groups, in Prague and Munich. In 1959, the zoo established the international studbook for the species — a record of the locations and sex of all known Przewalski’s horses in the world — in an attempt to grow its population through collaboration.

Prague zoo opens new home for rare wild horse species
→ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pr ... 021-04-22/

Four rare central Asian wild horses, whose breed was once near extinction, are now roaming a meadow overlooking Prague as the city's zoo expands a breeding program that aims to rebuild their numbers in the steppes of Asia.
The Prague Zoo released four Przewalski's horses on a 20-hectare (50-acre) plain that provides a breeding ground for the short, stocky animals while the zoo rebuilds their permanent stables and enclosure.
The horses — which weigh between 250 to 360 kilograms (550 to 795 pounds) — at one point were extinct in the wild but now inhabit reintroduction sites in Mongolia, China and Kazakhstan.

Przewalski’s horses are romping across Dívčí hrady
→ https://www.zoopraha.cz/en/about-zoo/ne ... ivci-hrady

On April 19th, 2021, the almost twenty-hectare plain at Prague’s Dívčí hrady became the new home to Przewalski’s horses. The Prague Zoo staff transported the first four mares from the breeding station in Dolní Dobřejov. They will be joined by a stallion in due time.

Visitors will be able to observe them from three viewpoints with barrier-free access. One of them is raised, and thus not only provides a unique view of the horses themselves, but also of the Prague panorama.

Return of the Wild Horses → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_the_Wild_Horses

Return of the Wild Horses is an in-situ conservation project organized by Prague Zoo. Its aim is to increase the numbers and genetic diversity of Przewalski's horses in their native habitat in Mongolia.

so, yesterday around noon, i left my hipster neighborhood, passing (via tram) by the acclaimed woke music club called “Fuchs 2” that erected (prior to the last Xmas) on its roof a big neon sign “Merry Crisis” (thus not making a reference to the past near-extinction of the Przewalski’s horse but rather addressing the current raise of the global fascism).


thereafter, i changed tram for a subway, ran up the crooked stairs, passed the crooked pathway, bypassed an errant stone in the middle of the path, and then finally... entered (as if) Mongolian steppe (situated on one of Prague’s hilltops).





horses were nicely visible by the plain eye.
however, my phone’s camera failed to deliver it without zooming (i.e. without pixelating).



group of the four mares (on the left) & a stallion (on the right)


the raised lookout was adorned with abundant infotainment.
(did you know that Przewalski’s horse is a punk among the horses? its prevailing mane style being the mohawk! as opposed to the flattened mane of a domesticated horse.)






from these little signboards, i also learned that within the enclosure there are sheltered not only wild horses but also kestrels & hoopoes.


excited by the free spirit of the wild horses, i decided not to leave via the same easy path but make a little downhill climbing.
the first part was still rather easygoing...







... the second part was a true adventure.






i was climbing down between these two rocks...


... and ended up in this picturesque little enclosure (not an open enclosure inhabited by wild horses but a tiny/tight bottom enclosure surrounded by rocks & trees).





ultimately, i left the area by passing under the viaduct that’s part of the Trans-Mongolian Railway route segment called “Prague Semmering”.

The Prague Semmering: Scenic rail route still going 150 years later
→ https://english.radio.cz/prague-semmeri ... er-8761665

Exactly 150 years ago, on September 16, 1872, the first passenger train was launched on the so-called Prague Semmering, the most picturesque railway line in the Czech capital. The line, which is listed as a cultural monument, earned its nickname due to its hilly profile, resembling the famous Austrian mountain railway.

[Lencho of the Apes]

I nominate that "Merry Crisis" screencap for the next banner photo.

[Jürka]

Johanna D'Arc of Mongolia (Ulrike Ottinger, 1989) #CoMoMongolia

The Question of Exoticism in Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia (by Toby Chan, 2023)
→ https://chicagomaroon.com/40643/arts/th ... -mongolia/

Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia follows a motley crew of European travelers on the Trans-Siberian Railway. The group, composed of the French Lady Windermere, a German school teacher, an American actress, and a Spanish girl, are forced out of their claustrophobic carriages onto the open steppes via a hijacking by Mongolian princess Ulan Iga. Taken hostage and brought to the princess’s yurts, the European travelers are pleasantly surprised by their captor’s hospitality. They share food and partake in the Mongolian summer festivities. A twist comes at the end of the film, when the European travelers find that the Mongols they have befriended were only upholding the illusion of a free nomadic life by living out their traditions. In reality, the narrator explains, the Mongols are an already “modernized” people. Leaving the steppes behind, Ulan Iga and the rest of the Mongols invite the European travelers onto their Trans-Mongolian Railway headed for Paris.

To call Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia merely a movie would be inaccurate. Instead, it is perhaps closer to an ethnography that tackles the problem of exoticism, forcing the audience to question their role as spectator.

...

Ottinger’s defense of exoticism’s morality comes at the end of the film, when she presents the Mongols as partaking in their own exoticism of European culture aboard the Trans-Mongolian. Speaking in English, Princess Ulan Iga tells Lady Windermere about her collection of European paintings. This moment is meant to represent the Mongols as equal players in the film’s exoticism, but it also contains an inherent irony. The Mongols’ capacity to engage in cultural dialogue is only realized when they become familiar to us. Throughout the film, the Mongols respond to the unfamiliar practices of the European guests, often with laughter, but they are not shown to process or comment on these practices in the same fashion as Lady Windermere does for the audience.



Princess Ulan Iga claims that in their summer palaces, they have pictures of Chinese princesses dressed in French rococo style, just as Louis XIV had pictures of French princesses in Chinese dress. Ottinger uses this line of dialogue to highlight the idea of mutual exotic attraction. However, when lifted out of the vacuum of the film, the idea of mutual exoticism is challenged by real historical context. There is an inherent power imbalance present in the history of colonialism, manifested in the one-sided looting of cultural artifacts, that goes against the reality that the film portrays.




Ottinger’s defense rests on the fact that the Mongols are equal players in exoticism, hence mutual exotic attraction, but this mutualism needs to be questioned. The point at which the film recognizes the Mongols as active players only comes when they have ditched their traditional dress and customs to assume European train uniforms. Could Ottinger have depicted the Mongols in conversation with the European travelers throughout Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia? Of course. This degree of integration would not constitute exoticism, though, as exoticism requires remaining on the periphery of cultural contact.



I don’t mean to put Ottinger in a catch-22. Can a film discuss exoticism without sponsoring it? And is exoticism inseparable from anthropological wonder? In Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia, Ottinger argues that exoticism is necessary and justified by mutual exotic attraction. I merely think that we should question that mutualism. At the very least, however, Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia is a remarkable film in its ability to raise questions about cultural representation that continue to be highly relevant 30 years later.

[Jürka]

Taiga (Ulrike Ottinger, 1992) #CoMoMongolia

This eight-hour-long documentary film is divided into 37 segments. It depicts the daily life of the Darkhad and Sojon Urinjanghai nomads, as well as their ceremonies such as weddings, festivals, and shamanistic practices.

1/ The Oul Pass with holy Obo relic - Guards of the Darkhad Valley
2/ The valley of the Darkhad Nomads
3/ Nomads along the Altrag River
4/ The shamaness Baldshir lives alone in the Höjen Valley
5/ With the Yura - the wedding
6/ With the Yura - the white food
7/ The Jura's neighbors - The singer and smith Dawadschi
8/ Sacred tree
9/ Suren Hor narrates the fairty tale of the naked boy in the hole in the ground
10/ The hunter and boot maker Ölziibajar
11/ The Öwtschuunii-Naadam-Festival of the sheep breast bone
12/ Wrestlers and Singers of Praise
13/ The nomads prepare to move to their winter camp
14/ On the way to Tsagaan Nor (white sea)
15/ The hunter Tscholoo
16/ Tsagaan Nor City
17/ Hero of work
18/ Tree cutter Sanji
19/ Örgöl reliquary
20/ How the old bears hunted
21/ On the Shishgid on the way to the reindeer nomads of the taiga
22/ Large Tsaatan meeting on the Tingis
23/ A Christian delegation has arrived
24/ Departure for the autumn camp, 5-days-trip away
25/ Trip to the southern taiga
26/ The shamaness Bajar and her family
27/ Back with the Jura - preparations for the winter camp
28/ The Jura's move to winter camp in Ulaan Uul
29/ The Jura's neighbors in Ulaan Uul
30/ Flour and tea seals have arrived at the store
31/ The dignitaries of Ulaan Uul host a farewell party
32/ Nomads on the Oul Pass
33/ First school day in Hadhal
34/ From Hadhal to Hanch, two forgotten trading centers
35/ Chöwsgöl Nor - Lake of Clear Water
36/ Ulaanbaatar - marriage palace
37/ Amusement park - epic singers

first of all, it needs to be said that watching (for several days) a 501-minute-long film inevitably brings synchronicities.
for example, imagine a viewer (me) is shamanizing the 31st seance of the CoMo (CoMoNo31) and suddenly the shamaness within the film utters, “i began shamanizing at 31.” chance? i don’t think so!




or, for example, imagine there is (in a certain country) a day of the so-called presidential inauguration of a deranged loser and a film’s protagonist suddenly starts obsessively shouting into a telephone, “Mörön, Mörön, Mörön, Mörön, Mörön, Mörön, Mörön, Mörön, Mörön, Mörön, Mörön...” you can be (rationally) aware that “Mörön’ is a place → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6r%C3%B6n but you can’t still avoid the (uncanny) feeling the caller is addressing (across the time) a person (the aforementioned deranged loser).



anyway, let’s be serious!
let’s address the strengths and weaknesses of the “observational documentary” genre.

Observational documentary is a type of documentary filmmaking that aims to record realistic, everyday life without intrusion.

unfortunately, “without intrusion” means keeping a distance.
and “keeping a distance” means (more or less) sacrificing access to the protagonists’ minds (their subjective thoughts).
as a result, you can capture (as an observational documentarist) obligatory small talk...



... or lyrics of the songs...



... but can hardly ever deliver the protagonists’ political opinions (for example).
what a pity! i would really love to hear the protagonists elaborating on the topic of ’Party canceled Ongons”.
→ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ongon




also, if the viewer is a Pyrrhonist skeptic (as i am), he/she would certainly appreciate — once witnessing a protagonist (wisely) refraining from judgment — an elaboration on the protagonist’s understanding of epoché (but in such a case the documentarist would have to make a few additional intrusive/impertinent questions).

→ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epoch%C3%A9
According to Webster's dictionary, Epoche is "the act of refraining from any conclusion for or against anything as the decisive step for the attainment of ataraxy".

on the other hand, observational documentaries can fully & thoroughly deliver the beauty of the landscape.
and the Mongolian landscape is insanely beautiful!







last but not least, a minor architectural observation!
despite a yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger (Mongolian) is certainly a prevailing form of a nomadic hacienda in Mongolia...


... whenever Mongols need to build an instant shelter, a teepee is still an option.


once a building has an institutional character, it’s solid.

[Jürka]

Independent filmmaker, producer, and writer Peter BROSENS (1962, Belgium) studied Social & Cultural Anthropology and holds a Master’s degree in Visual Anthropology. Between 1993 and 1999 he produced and co-directed his internationally acclaimed ‘Mongolia Trilogy’, for which he later received the Polar Star Award from the President of Mongolia.

Mongolia Trilogy, Pt. 1

State of Dogs (Peter Brosens, Dorjkhandyn Turmunkh, 1998) #CoMoMongolia

Mongolia from the pov of the (deceased) dog...

In Ulan Bator, Mongolia, the cur Baatar is shot by a hunter hired by the authorities to get rid of the dogs in the city.



Its soul recalls its life when it was a shepherd dog of a family and was abandoned in the field and walked to the city. Then it recalls when it meets a young woman who is near to having a baby.

The film includes brief interludes with a solar eclipse, a segment in which a young man recites poems directly to the camera, and a depiction of modern Mongolian life with undercurrents of mysticism and myth.

related dilettante encyclopedia links investigated:
→ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengri
→ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengrism

two (randomly) saved screencaps with animal statues:

[Jürka]

Nansalmaagin Uranchimeg, born in Ulan Bator in 1956, studied at the famous Moscow film school VGIK from 1975 to 1980. Several of her screenplays had already been made into films before she was able to make her first feature film, "The Rope".

Shackles AKA The Rope AKA The Little Thief From Ulan Bator (Nansalmaagin Uranchimeg, 1993) #CoMoMongolia

if you want to watch a Mongolian film that’s “proto-new-wavy” in feel, then this is the right option!

SYNOPSIS A
After the Russian troops’ departure, many street children survive in the capital city’s empty houses. Two of them, Tuguldur and Enkhee, are forced to work for the mob. They are forced to break into high-rise apartments by attaching a rope on the rooftop to sneak into the empty flats. Every day, they risk falling to death or being caught by the police. An old man tries to help Tuguldur, but the young boy is incapable of cutting the “tie” with his past.

SYNOPSIS B
A street boy in Ulan Bator who has run away from his unfeeling mother is hired by a gang of thieves to break into the homes of the wealthy. When he has achieved his goal and can afford a gravestone for his father, the thieves do not let him go. Reminiscent of Italian neorealism, this is an unobtrusive and bitter assessment of life in Mongolia's post-socialist society, which is characterized by hopelessness, especially among young people.

[Jürka]

Outliers (Zoljargal Purevdash, Gantumur Enkhtumur, 2017) #CoMoMongolia

Living in a city is punishment for a nomad who moves freely across the land.
Simply waiting at a stoplight is akin to being in a cage.

[Jürka]

ZU Retrospective, Pt. 1

Munkhzul Bum-Erdene is a Mongolian artist.
Her artistic name is Zulaa Urchuud.
She creates found footage experimental short films and art installations.

Ulaanbaatarization (Zulaa Urchuud, 2017) #CoMoMongolia

In the 1970s Socialist era Ulaanbaatar, Mongolian urban mentality took shape. Originally nomads, Mongolians had to adapt to the urban livelihood and environment, thus the special kind of urban mentality was originated. This change from nomadic way of life to the urbanized life still influences Mongolian people’s mind now. As a woman, who was born and raised in Ulaanbaatar, I tried to express these feelings about the changing mentality which cannot be conveyed through words.

Nomadtitude (Zulaa Urchuud, 2021) #CoMoMongolia

Using footage from socialist era Mongolia, Nomadtitude deals with the transition of the traditionally nomadic people to a lifestyle of urbanization. A changing of roads throughout the years and the movement of people from all across the country to the cities. A timeline of changing physical and spiritual paths. Primary instincts of the nomads, such as having a deep respect for natural surroundings, were forcefully replaced by socialist dogma and, later, capitalist machinations. This work presents the roads taken and not taken by the Mongolian nomads up until now.

[Jürka]

Mongolia Trilogy, Pt. 2

Poets of Mongolia (Peter Krüger, Peter Brosens, Byamba Sakhya, 1999) #CoMoMongolia

I am a Kazakh, a free man
Who loves running stallions
More than anything in the world
Who also loves to sing
At the great festivities
Who are the Kazakhs?
And what is their mystery?
I will tell you, they are brave people
Who know how to respect and to love
The traditions of their ancestors

The film starts in Nalaikh where old Mongolchaan is one of the many former miners who - after the closure of the mine - continue digging for coal in order to survive. Despite the extremely severe working conditions, he perseveres to support his children. Mongolchaan sells his coal to Basandorj, a middleman between the coal pits and the power stations in the city.








Basandorj delivers the coal to a power station where young Erdenetsetseg is in charge. Despite the harsh environment, she enjoys her life and work. The electricity produced by the power plant enlightens blind Amarjarkhal's apartment. Ever since she moved from Nalaikh to the capital she has made a living as a writer and performer of popular songs.

[Jürka]

Mongolia Trilogy, Pt. 3



City of the Steppes (Peter Brosens, 1994) #CoMoMongolia

A history of Mongolia told in exceptional style. Fragments of urban and rural life in Mongolia at a key moment in the fall of the Soviet Union.

The first part of the Mongolia Trilogy was an avant-garde documentary that tries to paint a multi-dimensional picture of Mongolia. It starts off with an ancient fable and then moves on to little segments about different factions of the Mongolian population and then a long closing chapter called The Anthem.



And all that in a unique jump cut, intrusive style that will create a totally experimental feel. The director does a great job at editing and even though it forays too much into effects at times, it is quite a different type of documentary, informative yet almost surreal.

I’m the mayor of the town of Choyr.
Considering all the natural resources
and infrastructure left by the Russians,
our government has decided to convert this area
into Mongolia’s first international free trade zone.
It’s therefore my responsibility and historical task
to dedicate myself to the success of this plan.

[sally]

Shackles AKA The Rope AKA The Little Thief From Ulan Bator (Nansalmaagin Uranchimeg, 1993) #CoMoMongolia

if you want to watch a Mongolian film that’s “proto-new-wavy” in feel, then this is the right option!

Reminiscent of Italian neorealism

it MIGHT be because i'm currently reading c s lewis' study of allegory in medieval love poetry, but i thought this was about as far from 'neorealism' as you can get - a wonderful concoction of poetic phantasmagorical allegorical allusion all 'tied' together perfectly - and the absolute best mongolian film i've seen by far....a shame the director didn't make more!

[Jürka]

yup, the Mongols again! it’s not over yet.








The Mongols (Parviz Kimiavi, 1973) #CoMoMongolia

Fragmented Allegories of National Authenticity: Art and Politics of the Iranian New Wave Cinema, 1960-79
(by Farbod Honarpisheh, 2016)
→ https://typeset.io/pdf/fragmented-alleg ... 2lf66u.pdf

Kimiavi’s 1973 feature film The Mongols is constructed as a collage of disparate visual, sound, and narrative components, including segments that think over the history and nature of cinema. Produced by the National Iranian Radio and Television, The Mongols also revolves around various forms of “unearthing” the past, from old artifacts buried under the soil to moving images from the cinema’s history, and even from its pre-history. There are two characters in the film, a young filmmaker for the national television network (played by Kimiavi himself) and his wife (played by the late Fahimeh Rastkar who worked mainly in the dubbing industry) who is finishing a doctoral dissertation on the Mongol invasion of medieval Persia. As he avidly reads on film history and worries about his assignment to a remote and poorly developed province, his world is invaded by phantasms of Mongol soldiers from the script of the unfinished dissertation. The “Mongols” (who the opening scene reveals are actors recruited among ethnic Turkmens from north-east Iran), both very spectral and very real, make their first appearance in the present time at an excavation site. We see men dressed in some local attire from the eastern parts of Iran digging holes in the ground in search of ancient artifacts, and, suddenly, the Mongols. The film’s treatment of film history moves in parallel, back in time, as a form of excavation of primitive relics. Similarly, what comes to the fore, breaking the continuity of the present time, is an onslaught from the cinema’s primal years and the precursors to the apparatus: Eadweard Muybridge horses and men; Georges Demenÿ uttering the words “Je vous aime” in 1891; William Kennedy Dickson The Gay Brothers (circa 1896); etc. The ancient relics taken out of the dry earth and the earliest moving images of history emerge, in Williams’ prediction, as “sources and as fragments against the modern world.”

...

Produced by the National Iranian Radio and Television, The Mongols offers a cutting critique of the infiltration of the nation by the technologies of mass communication. The bringing of telecommunication and with them the television to the remote regions leads to either absurdities or complete damage. In time it emerges that the real foreign invasion is that of Western technology, or as Al-e Ahmad would have called it the “machine,” for which the Mongols stand only as an abstract point of reference. When the woman’s voice utters the words “Speed of movement was the great skill of the Mongols,” images of the film’s Mongols running in the desert are intercut with those from the late nineteenth-century devices and experiments that were precursors to the cinema. The destructive side of the imported technology, spearheaded by the apparatus of television, is the inevitable erosion of old indigenous cultural mediums and forms. The narrative and pictorial art of Pardeh-khani, in which a story-teller recites in a rhythmic voice stories while pointing to the figures painted on a large canvas or pardeh (a word that also means screen, as the cinema screen, in Persian). In one scene we see a dervish telling the story of the martyrdom of the Third Imam of Shi’ism to a group of men and women, only to lose his audience when a television set arrives on the shoulders of another group of villagers. At least in one interview Kimiavi has put forward the idea that the non-linear, collage-like features of The Mongols are informed by the montage techniques of the storytelling genres of Naghali or Pardeh-khani and the related pictorial genre of coffeehouse painting. The reader should remember from Chapter One that these genres were also taken up by the Saqqa-khaneh painters in the late 1950s in their pursuet of creating a modernism based on native sources.

In The Mongols, the mass media is ultimately fashioned as the new Mongol invasion.