Mongolian Ping Pong (Lu Cao di)
It's barely even a game ball.
Not to be disrespectful, but as bouncy things go, the tiny, almost weightless, hollow, white sphere used in table tennis has all the ferocity of an Easter egg. Still, it's a thing of might and beauty in the delightful ``Mongolian Ping Pong," where it arguably possesses more magic as a mysterious found object than it's ever had as an element of sport.
Directed by Ning Hao, ``Mongolian Ping Pong" (a.k.a. ``Lu Cao Di") is a candid and enviably uncluttered film. While pretty much every movie shot on the Mongolian steppe has the guarantee of spectacular scenery, Ning and cinematographer Du Jie impress because they aren't afraid to linger on quirky, mundane, and unflattering parts of the landscape. In this remote grassy outpost at the edge of the Gobi Desert, where bullies and alcoholism are cultivated early, everyone stops when a car or motorcycle approaches. Du's cameras pause right along with the locals, and that makes for a leisurely, intimate film.
The simple screenplay, co-written by Ning, Xing Aina, and Gao Jianguo, tells the story of a young boy named Bilike (Hurichabilike), whose everyday life is short on innocence and wonderment. Living much as his nomadic ancestors did in the shadow of Genghis Kahn, Bilike is predisposed to believe he's found salvation in an odd-looking orb he plucks from the river. His grandmother calls it a ``glowing pearl," which sounds pretty impressive, and Bilike and his two best friends (played by Dawa and Geliban) regard it as treasure because, at minimum, they've never seen anything like it.
On the advice of a lama, they build an altar to the ping-pong ball, which seems as much about diversion as it is about spiritual calling. Usually, their chief amusement is stealing beers and playing a drinking game called ``toss the bones."
One day via TV, the boys discover that ping-pong is the national sport of China. This means they have the national ball, so they set off walking toward Beijing to return it. They don't get far before they're collected, set straight, and sent home, where the ball becomes a source of discord and disappointment, as if their part of the world needed more of either.
Just as the Coke bottle made a broad metaphor for technology and Africa in Jamie Uys's ``The Gods Must Be Crazy," the ping-pong ball in Ning's latest film invites you to draw your own comparisons to enigmatic, underappreciated, deceptively simple Mongolia. With every movie that gets made in this region, from ``Close to Eden" to ``The Story of the Weeping Camel," the view feels less and less exotic. That's progress. In ``Mongolian Ping Pong" the point is to look under the majestic vistas and see value in ordinary things -- ping-pong balls included.
Janice Page can be reached at jpage@globe.com.
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