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.
There is also the beautiful and strong film 'Tuya's Marriage' about the strong and hardworking and very independent Tuya, who after an injury no longer can provide for herself, her disabled husband, who she loves very much, and their two children. So out of poverty and need she has to divorce her husband and try to find a new man to marry, who can provide for them all. She hates it and hates all the many suitors who suddenly show up almost before she and her husband have even made that terrible decision.
ReplyDeleteAnd there is 'Mulan: Legendary Warrior' about the girl Hua Mulan (from a Chinese legend), who disguises as a young man and joins the army in order to spare her old and sick father form his duties, and who becomes a warrior hero, without anybody (alomost) discovering that she is a woman. It has some scenes from huge and beautiful yurts belonging to the 'barbarian' (Mongolian!) opposing warlord.
And there is the very beautiful (I tend to use that word all the time here, haha, but I also find yurts incredibly beautiful!) film 'Mujaan (The Craftsman)', which shows how a yurt is made from start to finish in rural Mongolia with the use of traditional tools and techniques. Made as a 'reenactment' to document how gers/yurts have always been made until recent times, where Mongolian yurt builders started using more modern methods.
'Tulpan' looks really good, I will try to find it.
You make very beautiful (ooops, there is was again!) and very, very well crafted yurts yourself. I have seen some of them in Cornwall.