The Great Captured Wonder

Over the weekend I wandered into DC with the intention of seeing a movie at Gallery Place, probably Wall-E. But jeezum crickets, the lines were long, and it's not something I want to see that bad. Long lines means crowds, crowds mean crowded theaters, and crowded theaters get on my nerves. And people younger than me, to make it even worse. Bah.

So I kept wandering on over to E Street Cinema, stuck my head in, and was pleasantly surprised to see Mongol starting in about 20 minutes. I've always found Genghis Khan and the rise of the Mongol Empire to be a very interesting subject, so I was pleased yet anxious when I heard they were making a movie about his life. I hadn't really paid attention to release dates, so it was a bit of good fortune that I stumbled on it when I did.

Let's get the standard stuff out of the way first: This is a really good movie, very well made, which tells a very specific story in a very specific way. I think the acting is good, though I sometimes have trouble determining such a thing in foreign-language films. I don't know what the dialogue is supposed to sound like, so it throws me a little bit. The scenery is great, the girl playing Borte is pretty (at least I thought so, an acquaintance disagreed), and all aspects of the movie come together well.

On to particular thoughts on the story:

When I think about Genghis and his eventual empire, I think BIG. At its height the empire covered over fifteen and a half million square miles. The phrase "Mongol Horde" brings to mind visions of vast numbers of men on horseback thundering across the steppes. So I was a little caught off guard at how little of that there is in the movie, mainly because the story focuses on Genghis as a man and his individual relationships with a select group of people: his father, his wife, and his blood brother Jamukha. For the most part, it's very small in scope for a man who would cast such a large shadow later on in his life.

Another thing that keeps the vast armies off the screen: Genghis is always getting captured by his enemies and put in chains. The guy is good at getting away, but largely stinks at staying free. That may be some of the "liberties" that the director took with the script to fill in some holes, but I have done some reading that mentioned at least to imprisonments of Genghis before he became the Great Khan.

My acquaintance said that this was just the first in a trilogy about Genghis, but I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere else. I hope it turns out to be true, and wonder if it will follow just Genghis himself or extend beyond into the later conquests of the horde. I'd sort of like to see the battle tactics that Mongol generals used to conquer China, conquer Central Asia, and kill tens of thousands of Western knights in a single battle.