Mongol
On the way out of Sergei Bodrov's "Mongol," a gentleman exclaimed to everyone within earshot, "They just don't make 'em like that anymore." He meant, I assume, that there aren't enough big serious and serious-looking epic biographies of historical superstars.
"Mongol" is Bodrov's impressively grand rendering of Genghis Khan before all the conquering and slaughter, when he was just Temujin, a besieged young warrior in love. And it actually works as an old-fashioned production - one with breathtaking mohawks, a scary yoking, one daring escape, hottish sex, ice, snow, braying sheep, blood oaths, dehydrating dunes, throat singing, a nighttime urination, kidnapping, charged reunions, and relatively authentic entertainment values.
Forty-three years ago, Harry Levin's "Genghis Khan" was full of Americans, Europeans - Telly Savalas, James Mason, Eli Wallach, Francoise Dorléac - and Omar Sharif, Hollywood's all-purpose non-white hero, as Genghis himself. Under those hammy circumstances, seriousness softens rather immediately into camp. "Mongol" uses actors at least loosely from that part of the world. The Japanese star Tadanobu Asano plays the adult Temujin, and his intimidating sternness ensures a consistent gravity. In fact, even at the movie's most ridiculous (and "Mongol" is not without its ridiculous moments), this is a picture you laugh with more than laugh at.
Bodrov and Arif Aliyev wrote the film, which was one of this year's foreign-language Oscar nominees, and their account is framed as a drama of inflamed loins and intense loyalty. Things get underway along the arid steppes of eastern Asia in 1172, where 9-year-old Temujin is required to choose a wife from a roundup of girls. The boy's mother is a woman whom his father, a Mongol khan, kidnapped from the Merkits, a rival tribe. She was the leader's wife, and to restore the peace, the father has the boy pick a Merkit bride. He picks Börte, who, by 1186, has grown into a beauty, played by Khulan Chuluun.
Before love can ever really blossom, the movie begins its long string of tribal affronts and recriminations that, more than once, culminate in big, cinematic battles. But Bodrov's restraint is the movie's most interesting virtue. It's as if he and Aliyev have surveyed Genghis's grisly resumé and distilled the tempestuousness to a contemplative calm. Violence is made to seem like a last, ugly resort. When Temujin's men accidentally kill the brother of Temujin's childhood friend, Jamuka (Amarbold Tuvshinbayar), another khan, you fear the reprisals more than you anticipate them.
All this thoughtfulness turns chaotic in one Mongol-Merkit showdown. But just when it looks as though all the stabbing and impaling and shrieking have gotten away from Bodrov, he cuts ahead to the end of the battle. The hordes of warriors turn into piles of corpses, and there are about five men left walloping each other. It's a sly touch, a sign that the director doesn't lust for blood. Fighting has rarely seemed as thankless and comically without a point.
Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/movienation.
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