The Fall of Otrar

It is a war movie set in a pre-modern world during the Middle Ages when the world's most powerful empire, the Mongolian Empire, conquered the world.

Naturally, this war and historical movie was made in Kazakhstan, the brother country of Mongolia.

As a war movie, it does an amazing job of showing cavalry warfare.

The armor, helmets, and swords are very cool.

It also features a lot of large-scale cavalry battles, making it one of the best war movies for men who like cavalry.

The Scimitar, the military and cavalry sword of the Mongol Empire, is also featured heavily.

It"s a great war movie.

I actually had high hopes for this movie when watching it in the cinema at a film festival in Copenhagen, the director Amirkulov was also present at the viewing, so it felt like a special occasion. And it surely isnt every day one is given the opportunity to shake a director from Kasakhstan in the hand. The movie itself revolved around some historical battles and politics which are really unknown for me, and even though mr Amirkulov pointed out before the film began that we in the audience could expect some obscure historical talk in the film, i was surprised about the lack of many things in the movie. A lot of ideas are tested in the movie, but everything feels like the movie tried so hard to be great, that it fell apart. Bad editing, and often dull cinematography made the interest fall apart. I would suggest finding some reading material about the historical facts about the fall of Otrar, than wasting 3 hours watching this overlong film.

Saw this one last night. For any fans of Kurosawa/Mifune samurai epics, of late John Ford-style western epics, or of Peckinpah, it is a must-see. Amirkulov has absorbed all their lessons and more. Fall of Otrar is remarkable - I don't think I've ever seen a "historical eipc" where the cast seemed so perfectly of the time and place (although there's something inescapably modern about the way the leading roles of Ozhu (the Mifune character), Kairkhan and Genghis Khan are conceived). The photography (both the color and B&W sequences) is gorgeous, and Amirkulov displays a sure eye for how to render the Central Asian landscape visually. At 2hrs 45mins the film is not overlong - every scene scores its point and everything is so beautiful that at times you just want it to go on and on.

People have drawn parallels with the takeover of Kazakhstan and Central Asia by the Russsians and Stalin, and with the current menace to these societies from corporate globalization. Could be. It's worth noting, however, that the Kipchaks (at least as I remember my history) actually did fairly well under the Mongol federation and maintained their distinct identity longer than the movie implies.

Fall of Otrar is full of quirky humor, throwaway sequences that fit perfectly in a loopy way, and lots and lots of violence. Too many great sequences to sample here, but Kairkhan's fate at the end is not to be missed. Dialogue is florid and utterly in keeping with the visuals.

This is one of those occasions where the moviemakers went to great trouble and expense to produce something that looks and feels like primal folklore. They succeeded. Made me feel that movies have been with us, mentally, since the beginning of time, that they satisfy a craving for a certain way to tell a story about ourselves that we've always known we could do. It's wonderful to see this achieved so well.

Everybody (with an interest in the topic) knows the Mongol conquest of Khoresm (that is of everything to the West of China) started with a Mongol caravan which got pillaged by uncle of Khoresm Shah in Otrar. Well, here we are told what exactly had happened and how the Mongols really had it coming and how it really wasn't the fault of Central Asian Turks. Now Central Asia got it's own Andrey Rublyov movie. Yeah!

It's been about 10 years since I saw this movie (I saw it shortly before it came out) -- it's about the conquest of the town of Otrar, in central Asia, by the Mongols in the Middle Ages. It's something like four hours long, but it's good. Dialogue is in Kazakh.

Also, Ardak Amirkulov is one of the directors of the "New Kazakh Wave." This is a group of Kazakh directors who studied under the Russian filmmaker Sergei Solovyov (director of The House Under the Starry Sky (Dom pod zvyodznym nebom) (1991)), and includes Yermek Shinarbayev, who directed the interesting movie Revenge (Mest) (1989).