Urga (1991)

Director:

Nikita Mikhalkov

Writers:

Rustam Ibragimbekov (screenplay)
Rustam Ibragimbekov (story)

Release Date:

30 October 1992 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

The shepherd Gombo lives with his wife, three children and grandmother in a tent on the Mongolian steppe...

Plot Keywords:

Music Teacher | Wife | China | Patriot | Condom

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Badema	...	Pagma
Bayaertu	...	Gombo
Vladimir Gostyukhin	...	Sergei
Babushka	...	Grandma
Larisa Kuznetsova	...	Marina
Jon Bochinski	...	Stanislas
Yongyan Bao	...	Bourma
Wurinile	...	Bouin
Biao Wang	...	Van Biao
Baoyinhexige	...	Bayartou
Nikolai Voshchilin	...	Nikolai
Jinsheng Bao

Also Known As:

Урга (Soviet Union: Russian title)
Close to Eden (USA)
Territory of Love (International: English title)

Runtime:

119 min | Russia:106 min

Country:

France | Soviet Union

Language:

Mongolian | Russian | Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Australia:PG | Iceland:L | Argentina:Atp | Chile:TE | Finland:K-12 | Germany:6 (bw) | Spain:T | Sweden:11 | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Hulun Buir Aimag, Inner Mongolia, China

Company:

Aria

Trivia:

Director Cameo: [Nikita Mikhalkov]riding a bicycle in the crowd 57 minutes in.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 7th Annual Russian Academy of Cinema Arts Awards (1993) (TV)

Haunted by Grasses

The best definition I can give to movies I greatly admire is that they take me someplace I don't expect to go.

It can be a special location. It can be a special moment. It can be a special revelation.

CLOSE TO EDEN, as this movie has been titled in the United States, offers the entire combination. A 1992 Russian nominee for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the movie opens on the vast expanses of the steppes of Mongolia, where the setting initially is evocative of a certain timelessness. The historical instant cannot be ascertained confidently, even within an error margin of a few centuries. Nor do we know what the movie designs ultimately to tell us.

Such uncertainty begins to give way as a vehicle and visitor enter the scene and are involved in a mishap that results from first sleepiness and then fright. The nature of the vehicle and visitor narrow the reference epoch to an accuracy level of mere decades. From there, the plot leads to a likeable nuclear family of herders, to which a grandmother is attached. We follow their story and soon learn, humorously, when among the vast expanses of time it occurs.

The theme here is subtly...ecological...in three parts. The first part concerns the lifestyle of the family, and its sufficiency. The second part concerns the travel the father undertakes, and an assigned errand he seeks to accomplish in the course of that journey. The third part concerns the conclusion, where the issue of time again intervenes. There is in fact no timelessness, but rather its passage. The narrator in A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT is thus "haunted by waters." So, likewise, the ending of CLOSE TO EDEN is haunted by grasses.