'Mongol'

[mr_jez]

Just back from seeing this movie at the Dukes this evening...

http://www.mongolmovie.com/

Fantastic!

It swept me away up into it, with so much wonderful Mongolian music making up the score...and a landscape and sky beyond words.

Go Temudjin!

Comments

[silent_wrong_me]

I enjoyed the movie, i did, but i thought the narrative was just a bit weak. It was definately epic and pretty, and maybe i am just too used to Hollywood plot lines, but the badly moving timeline just left me going "WTF?"

[mr_jez]

Aye, from a mainstream Anglo-American viewing perspective, the narrative was probably the weakest part, but I'm not sure whether that's down to the way the memory of Temudjin is preserved in the region, the way other folk make movies, or just sloppy workmanship.

Personally I was spellbound for the whole 2+ hours and can't wait for the next part of the trilogy, but then I have a prior interest in the subject matter, and, well, got pretty tired with the same old formulaic spoonfeeding of the Hollywood movie machine a *long* time ago.

The Mongols still honour the sky spirits with stone cairns on hilltops, decorated with horse skulls. A friend of mine who was there a few years ago even said that many of the people hoped to transfer the capital back from Ulan Bator to the original hosting site used by Genghis.

[silent_wrong_me]

I loved the effects, but the timeline made no sense (pregnant, baby, young child over about 2 days?)

It did look though like i thought mongol society would be, harsh and military. Watching that and doing a direct comparison to 300 is interesting

[mr_jez]

Ah, I may have interpreted that sequence differently. A lot of the cuts from scene to scene appeared to involve significant jumps in time, and I was fairly happy with how I fitted it together in my head... ;o)

Temudjin created one of the most notable military forces of history from the Mongol clans, but I've always wondered how much was inherent in his people, and how much he instituted himself.

I think it will be very interesting to see what they do with the later parts of the tale, especially if they include Subedei's expedition to Russia and Europe.