FILMSTORY PRESENTS:
(2007) dir. Sergey Bodrov; 126min.
FRIDAY, April 27th at 7* & 9:30pm
SATURDAY, April 28th at 7 & 9:30pm
SUNDAY, April 29th at 3pm
*Filmstory.org presents a special short talk by historian Lisa Donnelly before the Friday screening at 7pm.
“Mongol” — or, as I prefer to think of it, “Genghis Khan: The Early Years” — is a big, ponderous epic, its beautifully composed landscape shots punctuated by thundering hooves and bloody, slow-motion battle sequences. Directed by the protean and prolific Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov (who wrote the script with Arif Aliyev), it is, among other things, a stubborn defense of old-fashioned, grand-scale moviemaking. (It is also an old-style international co-production financed by some fairly new players in world cinema, including companies in Kazakhstan and Mongolia.) Without irony or digital effects “Mongol,” the first installment in a planned trilogy, tells the story of a solitary man’s rise to a position of great power. — A. O. Scott
