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Sick Product of a Sick System

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

What an experience, this movie is too beautiful. I discovered this movie when i searched some stuff about Monoglia and Mongols, i am for long time very interested in that part of the world, and on one site Urga was highly recommended movie, so i say to myself that i must watch it, and it was as i say in the beginning one of the most beautiful cinematographic experience i have ever had. Everything about this movie is beautiful, from landscapes, cast, music, atmosphere, relationship between characters, really everything is in place, incredible directing by Nikita Mikhalkov, definitely i will watch more of his films in the future. Very nice acting by Vladimir Gostyukhin, you will really love his character and also other Mongolian actors did a nice job, everything is very natural, and it is the best way of acting. When you watch this movie, you will smile, you will cry, and at end of it you will feel total serenity, feeling that you were really Close to Eden.M

It is a part of Inner Mongolia which seemed to be cut out from the outside world. But the city-bred Pagma is trying to resist the advances of her husband Gombo out on the plains. It would turn out that the married couple has three children, while Chinese law (which Inner Mongolia is part of China) limits Mongolian families to two children.There are also signs of modern influences in the hut the family lives in, even if Gombo raises sheep, cattle and horses, leading the live of a typical Mongolian nomad. A generator for electric light in the hut, Gombo's son wearing a baseball cap, his daughter who plays an accordion which was given to her by an uncle who lives in the city, the neighbour who seems to be drunk most of the time whenever Gombo and Pagma sees him who gives them a movie poster and swearing that it looks like his brother in America which actually shows Sylvester Stallone in Rambo.Gombo's seemingly normal life would be disrupted when he rescued Sergei, a Russian construction worker building the transcontinental road in Mogolia where his truck went to the edge of a lake. After initial awkward exchanges which happened at the hut when Sergei initially wondered what to do with the sheep which Gombo had killed and skinned, the two men from very different backgrounds began to feel at ease with each other.But there is also Pagma who had told Gombo to go to the city to get a television set and some condoms, other than Sergei wondering why he has to work outside of Russia while trying to get to grips with the demise of the Russian soul at a nightclub in the city with a fellow compatriot, which came at a time when the Soviet Union has already collapsed. Even with the unlikely friendship, there is the constant juxtaposition of what the intrusions of the modern age has in store for the two men who wants to cling on to their respective identities.It is not a film to understand easily on the surface as it forces to look at one's own identity as it connects with the world around him/her, but there are also the comic elements in the film like in the form of the drunken neighbour of Gombo and Pagma to provide the comic relief.For those who may be unaware of the various references shown and mentioned throughout the film, it can seem confusing at times, even towards the ending. But it is a reminder of how there are times when one wants to move forward with the times, there always seemed to be something holding one back reminding one's own identity in the first place.

What Mikhalkov and his actors did here is unbelievable. I mean, let aside the immense value of this film, I keep wondering how did they do that? How the hack came such an idea to them, to make such a...how should I say, different, crazy, enormous movie ? How did they make those kids play such terrific performances?! Not one of them, but three...You will say that they weren't really uneducated kids from the steppes but educated kids with school that were just acting. Yeah, but how the hell can a kid from the city slip under the skin of a character that lives his entire life in the steppe?! And the performance of Vladimir Gostyukin is nothing less than BRILLIANT. Stands on the same level with the great performances of the great American and British actors, I mean Hanks, Hackman, Hopkins, etc. Oh, it was so easy to screw it up, this movie. A good straight old American movie with this theme would have been like this : the guys are living in the steppe, poetry, here comes the Russian, communication, friendship, then the balance is disturbed, violence come, outside forces that try to ruin the life of the characters, the characters fight, win, the Russian leaves, they say goodbye, they cry, last shot, the Russian appears at the horizon to see them again. Nothing like that in this movie. It is SOOO smart!!!!! Bravo for the Golden Lion, perfectly deserved!

I had to embrace my aunt after seeing this movie for having brought me to see it. The images are beautiful and the relationships are, at times, complex but always touching. Never have I experienced a filmmaker able to capture the beautiful humanity of each of his characters and their gestures. This film is a treasure and quite possibly my favorite film of all time.