Byambasuren Davaa does a magnificent job as the writer and director of this simple, but monumental work about Mongolia. In my opinion, this, not any of the nominees for 2009 for either category of documentary or mainstream film, was the best film from that year. Urna Chahar-Tugchi gives a once-in-a-lifetime performance as a woman who seeks to reclaim part of her past stolen by the Cultural Revolution. In this sense, the film has some parallels to "The Red Violin" which had been made about ten years earlier.
But make no mistake; this film is completely unique, and at a hundredth of the budget of The Red Violin, is a master work of art. Urna's smile can light up an entire valley at times; and her face is the epitome of the Mongol woman in her prime. The hour and a half went by so fast, I thought there was a glitch in the computer, but it just blew by, like the unforgiving winds of the hills of Mongolia. There are so many breathtakingly beautiful scenes within the film that they are too numerous to mention. My favorite is Urna lying in the tall grass as sunrise approaches; too beautiful for words. There are also several scenes of Mongolian cowboys, the finest horsemen in the history of the world. Even the children are expert horsemen. The music is sumptuous; and must be heard to be appreciated. It conveys the sadness of the hills and the eventual decline of the Mongolian Empire. It is clear from this film that all Western American Indians are derived from these hills as well; when Eastern migration of tens of thousands of years in the past went across the short land mass between Asia and Canada. These migrations are well-documented by several prominent anthropologists. Teepees, beating drums while dancing around a fire, and several other unmistakable similarities of the American Indian to these Mongolian hill people will convince you that these anthropologists are on the money. The twenty shades of green will numb your senses of beauty as well. No landscape in the world is as enthralling as the Mongolian hills. Do not miss this film if you love nature, music, and human emotion.
