Mongolian Ping Pong
September 19th 2007 22:05
My second Mongolian film came shortly after; last night, I watched Mongolian Ping Pong, a 2005 movie from Chinese director Hao Ning. Following in the styles of the Sixth Generation of Chinese directors, he's assembled a beautiful story with unprofessional actors, set in front of the gorgeous grasslands of Mongolia.
The story focuses on three young boys, one of whom finds a ping pong ball floating in the local river. Removed from any sense of modern society, he's unable to understand what the ball is, and neither can any of the adults, except for his grandmother, who tells him it's a 'glowing pearl'.
Allmovie.com noted that the movie is similar to The Gods Must Be Crazy, and it's an apt comparison. The ball causes jealousy and anger, and the boys finally decide to take it to Beijing, which is a place they've only heard of in song.
The blue blue skies over the grasslands provides for some incredible backdrops, and the director takes care to use the widest frame possible, showing how isolated these Mongolian families are... while the Story of the Weeping Camel was filmed in the Gobi Desert, with the barren landscape weighing heavily on the viewer, the grasslands, in comparison, seem so saturnian, even fairy-tale like.
While Mongolian Ping Pong doesn't feel as tightly made as the Weeping Camel, and suffers a bit from odd acting, it's still quite an enjoyable film, quite well-rated on Rotten Tomatoes. Slow-moving, aimless, drifting along like the ping pong floating in the water, it's a movie that's like an excellent daydream, with colours worthy of a painting.
I say: Not a film to hold attention, but probably best watched on a weekend ruined by bad weather.
See it for: You'll never imagine how comfortable a yurt is, until you see it in one of these movies!
* the first image is from Projects-Abroad.net
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