Russian film has traditionally been overlooked, even within the arthouse sector, in favour of soppy bourgeois French comedies. For every Alexander Sokurov title to make it onto Irish screens, you’ll find dozens of frivolities detailing frou-frou la-la romantic misunderstandings in the Loire Valley.
Well, the Great Bear is awakening from its slumber. Alongside the new breed of gold-toothed, designer tracksuit Russian capitalist, a new kind of Russian movie has swaggered onto the global stage. Forget double-bills featuring Tarkovsky. Old hands like Sergei Bodrov and young guns like Timor Bekmambetov are no longer after a run in your local high-fallutin’ fleapit. Mongol – The Rise To Power Of Genghis Khan, like Nightwatch before it, is made for folks who enjoyed Lord Of The Rings and Fight Club rather than Andrei Rublev and The Return.
In that spirit, Tadanobu Asano’s portrayal of Genghis Khan owes as much to Errol Flynn at his most swashbuckling as it does to the historical thirteenth century overlord.
Forget genocide. This Genghis is all about the courtly love.
From the moment Temüjin (as the young Genghis was known) sees the precocious Börte (Honglei Sun), he decides that she’s the Empress-In-Waiting for him. Sadly, when his father dies rival tribes strip the tender aged warrior of all his worldly bearskins. Worse, his bride is carried off. Her young paramour is left with little option but to mount a mighty charge against his enemies. Decapitations swiftly follow.
It would be easy to trumpet this bold revisionist epic as an Asian Braveheart but there’s enough to distinguish Mongol as its own thing. The smart nods to local colour – great hunks of meat, an unforgiving landscape, more hunks of meat – make you think that director Bodrov has been watching such compelling Mongolian ethnographs as The Story Of The Weeping Camel. And who can resist the immortal theme of Girl Meets Barbarian? Only the very hard of heart, that’s who.