Monday 30 April 2012

Yurts on Film



 I recently watched Tulpan (Tulip) a great film about a young Kazakh man returning to the steppe after his military service with dreams of owning his own yurt, marriage to the elusive Tulpan, and owning his own flock of sheep. It is a beautiful film of a man's determination to return to live on the land, a land of extreme hardship right on the edge of life itself. He turns his back on the navy and the city, to live in this beautiful almost barren plain which almost everyone else has already abandoned, to suffer the humiliations of his brother in law who ensures that this rite of passage is not an easy one.
Other films with yurts....

1.Urga -  A Russian truck driver breaks down in the middle of the Mongolian steppe where he meets Gombo a mongolian nomad and an unlikely friendship develops.
2. Tulpan
3. Mongol - A great epic of a film about Chingis Khan's early life, lots of yurts, horses and blood.
4.The Story of the Weeping Camel
5.The Cave of the Yellow Dog

There is also Troy and The Golden Compass which use yurts albeit fleetingly in one or two scenes, there must be many more films or references so  please add any unusual, interesting or trivial  yurt stuff that you come across.