Humanity of Motive Behind the Inhumanity of Action (movie review)

Kudos to Bodrov! What a movie: piercing and breathtaking as an invasion of mongols itself!
Having grown up as a Russian, furthermore, in Moscow in the Arbat neighborhood literally a two lane street from Mongol Embassy (on what used to be called Voevodin Lane, across school #69), I have always been fascinated with the Mongol culture. Frankly, what Russian wasn't after the three hundred year Mongol-Tartar yoke?! It takes a talented Russian film-maker to make a movie about a great Mongol!

This isn't the story of conquest, but a story of love, forgiveness, and detachment from the material. Before the great Khan became the man to take away others' freedom he had to find his own. Bodrov's movie is a close up on an undeviating flight of consciousness powered by personal ethics (operating from Kohlberg's highest stage of moral development, that stage in which a mind makes its own rules, balancing on the brink of enlightenment and sociopathy). Bodrov reveals the spirituality of the motive: "never betray your khan," i.e. the spirituality of integrity (in the sense of being true to your self, with any given "khan" being nothing more than a projection of one's Self with which one later identifies).

In Bodrov's interpretation, Genghis' military success seems to owe more to the integrity of his army and secularity of leadership (that did not impose its religion but only law and taxes) than to military acumen. The Mongol conquest, unlike, say the Crusades, did not seem to attempt to rob people of their psychological sovereignty but only of the attempts to possess that which doesn't belong to anyone anyway, in a kind of bloody spiritual detoxification and re-prioritization.

Who knows how historically accurate Bodrov's portrayal of the Khan is?! But what a beautiful interpretation.
Cinematographically, the movie has the best of that Dovzhenkesque (a school of Soviet cinematography) slow-motion focus on detail, exemplified in such visually and metaphorically rich scenes as; falling through the ice, from the snow-white surface of the day, into the murky underwater of the unconscious; the shamanic communion with the wolf essence; Khan's brother's spin-around-and-slide-into-the-sleeves-of-an-offered-sable-coat harmony of uninterrupted physical flow of a relaxed mind; etc, etc.

The cast and characters are amazing: Temujin's psychopathic calmness, Jamukha's face-saving mannerism of throwing back his head in demonstrative acceptance of "what is," Borte's inspiring beauty and non-interference with Temujin's existential trajectory (despite her obvious romantic attachments and preferences).

Bodrov's emphasis on choice - in Brother, in Mongol - reveals an existential commitment of his own, a commitment to finding the humanity of motive behind the inhumanity of action.

Pavel Somov, Ph.D.
www.eatingthemoment.com