In the former Soviet Union, titles such as Storm over Asia (Pudovkin, 1928) or Son of Mongolia (A. Trauberg, 1936) are rather big productions whith plots which carry clear messages. Storm over Asia, for example, is a ferocious denunciation of the exploitation of poor and uneducated nomads by greedy foreign fur traders. Son of Mongolia, on the other hand, uses a classical Mongolian legend about a clumsy young boy who, although suffering general rejection, in the end through a series of comic incidents, is able to win recognition from the community. Several epic films were also made, over the years, by Soviet directors either to describe wars and conquest that tooke place several centuries ago or the sovietization process that took place in Mongolia. Like Soviet â`historical-revolutionary' films set in Central Asia, Soviet historical films set in Mongolia can best be understood as a form of Soviet orientalism (Prusin & Zeman: 259). With the Bolshevik revolution, another dimension was added to the old Russian colonial framework:
If Soviet civilization was rational, secular, revolutionary, then Central Asia was superstitious, religious and counter-revolutionary. Only after the process of Sovietization was complete, could the region be `elevated' to fill an appropriate niche in the `brotherly family of the Soviet people' (260).The will to `enlighten' the `backward east' is clear and is part of Moscow's process of `building socialism', a process that is very much at work in many Soviet films set in Mongolia or Soviet-Mongolian co-productions. In Serelt, for example, one of the most `classical' film of Mongolian cinema, more `advanced' Europeans are opposed to `backward' Mongols. Soviets are `progressive' while natives are dominated by the feudal forces of `barbarity'. At the same time, if the great historical-epic films clearly serve an ideological purpose, they were nevertheless very popular films, entertaining the general public, through the use of a Western like type of narration, action, fictiononalisation of history, human drama and exotic settings.
The myth, history and stories surrounding the great 12th century conqueror Gingis Khan have often been the focus of non-Mongolian films. Mongolia declared its independence in 1921, but was subject to Soviet rule from 1935 to the mid-Eighties.
Under the Soviets the use of Gingis Khan's name in poems, songs, texts or films was outlawed. Since 1990, however, all this has changed. Virtually everything made or produced in the country carries the great emperor's name and everybody is eager to see or read whatever they can about him. His name has become a hallmark of Mongolian heritage --- something like Pushkin in Russia --- and it is used as an emblem for Mongolian prestige and pride in the face of its various invaders, especially the former USSR. There have been two fictional feature-length films on his life since 1990: The Chinese film Gingis Khan, set in Inner Mongolia, received critical acclaim and was a box-office success; the Mongolian feature (1992) failed both with the critics and at the box office. Nevertheless both films emphasize Gingis Khan's achievements and portray a Mongolia still in military and cultural domination of half the world. In the Western world, Gingis Khan is the topic of several mostly American or European epic films in which, however, Gingis Khan himself emerges as a caricature, an embodiement of both barbarism and tyranny. I Mongoli (André de Toth, Italy-France, 1961), presents us with an aging and almost pacific Gingis Khan (Roldano Lupi), who, after his years of plunder and rapine, senses a need to renounce his life of conquest for the sake of Mongolians in the future. At this point in the film, the Mongols are about to engage in a war against the Poles. Gingis's son, Ogotai (Jack Palance) under the influence of the evil Huluna (Anita Ekberg), his Russian wife, opposes his father's will and organizes a counterplot that would, if successful, inevitably lead to war and the satisfaction of his fantasies for blood and power: `what I want is to destroy the Poles entirely' he claims. Now `the emperor of the world', depicted as a white bearded, wise and gentle grandfather, discovers the treason and condemns his son before being killed (quite unhistorically) by his wicked daughter-in-law. Ogotai later commits suicide and Huluna succumbs to the quicksands. Bearing no resemblance to reality, this film is one of the many examples of this type, showing Gingis Khan as the perfect example of absolute power, barbarism and of a never ending thirst of invasions.
Seven Women (John Ford), another film set at the border of Mongolia and China, does not recall Gingis Khan the man but plays all along on the notion of barbarism as embodied by anybody coming from Mongolia, as opposed to the more `civilized' Chinese and, of course, to the seven Western women who are over there for humanitarian and education purposes.