Tempête sur l'Asie

The journey of Bair, the Mongol, is almost a ritualistic study of the Mongols fighting alongside the Partisans, who are helping the Soviets against a British occupation. It also shows, in great detail, the plight of the struggling fur-trader in 1920 northern Russia. I think this is the first film from 1928 that I feel suffered a little from being silent, although the musical score provided by the DVD, does help with the pace of the film. The story is slightly jerky though and they do hang on certain scenes a little long. That doesn't mean this is a bad film. By no stretch, is that the case. I loved this film accept for those knit-picks.

Director Vsevolod Pudovkin, choreographed many great battle scenes. They utilize some very cool editing tricks, especially in my two favorite scenes. In the first scene, when the warning goes out to find the man who drew the white man's blood, they use great flip editing and quick-cuts, most notably, during the storm/battle at the end. Lots of metaphorical montage.

The battle in the woods was fantastic also. Great emotion! The death of the Partisan leader shows great emotion, with great facial expressions on the actors. Vsevolod Pudovkin captures moody imagery of the woods that enhances the experience. All-in-all, a beautiful film, which almost attains a flow, that is like a poetic symphony, until it hits those little knit-picks I mentioned earlier.

8.8 (B+ MyGrade) = 8 IMDB.

There's a scene early on in Storm Over Asia where Mongolian fur traders are bringing in their pelts for a British imperialist to purchase. The power dynamic is so stilted and he treats them with no humanity, haughtily tossing down a couple of coins for what he deems a piece is worth after having seized it. When he does this with a particularly beautiful and rare fur, the previously placid locals get rankled over how unfair he's being, and the tension is palpable. It's a fantastic scene and while it may seem like communist propaganda, it was a completely legitimate critique of capitalism, a system which if unchecked, invariably allows for the selfish exploitation of the poor by the wealthy - much like an American film like Ninotchka contained valid criticisms of communism in the Soviet Union. This was a five star moment and I wish the film had managed to remain focused. The visuals are also brilliant, including breathtaking landscapes in Mongolia, artistic close ups, and fast cut montage sequences. These scored high marks for me as well.

Where the film falters is in the story it tells, and the excruciatingly slow pace it takes to tell it. Shortly after the fur trading scene, the local flees and comes across a group of Russian partisans fighting British forces. Huh? You might think, wondering when such activity took place, and you'd be right to doubt it. And the history here matters, because it was actually the Soviet Union that was actively involved in undermining local autonomy in this region. To make a film showing someone else committing the evil your protagonists actually committed is similar to old American westerns which are heavy on Native-American violence instead of showing any semblance of the brutal genocide, and it's wrong to do so, no matter how skilled the filmmaker.

The film shows some authentic footage of Buddhist ceremonies which held some interest to me, but they aren't filmed in a way to foster understanding of the culture, but rather, seem to emphasize how "exotic" the natives are. Ordinarily I wouldn't care as much and just be happy something like this was filmed for posterity, but here it felt out of place and elongated and already bloated film. The shots of the reincarnated Lama on his throne as a baby were pretty fun for me though, I must confess.

The business of making the supposed descendant of Genghis Khan a puppet leader takes far too long to unfold though, and the scenes with the British aristocrats were a chore to sit through, even they it did bring us back around to the beautiful pelt in the story line. There is something to be said for the fury of the Mongolian man at the end, and it's impressive that he's shown to be righteous in the face of racism. Right before that, you see, the British businessman has said white people "must be protected from the encroachments of colored scoundrels!", and the British general, smoke billowing out from behind him as if he were the devil, orders him to withdraw, because he has his own plans. That's a wonderful moment.

Ultimately, I liked the power in the anti-imperialist message and the visual artistry, but 131 minutes was too long, and the historical distortion was too tough for me to overlook. In any event, it's not one I'd like to see again, except in clips of the finer moments.

Contrary to what the English guy says (hey, the Brits are the bad guys in this movie, whaddaya expect), this is to my mind the most impressive work of Soviet silent cinema-- an epic with several dazzling sequences of rat-a-tat-tat editing that invite comparison with Gance's Napoleon, as well as a deliberate build to an explosive climax that, in its willingness to delay gratification until almost the breaking point, has the operatic grandeur of something like The Godfather. Highly recommended (in fact, highly recommended before you see less accessible works such as October or Potemkin).

"Possess your soul in patience!" my grandmother used to chide me until I could settle down and get with whatever new experience I was about to endure--and learn from. Today's viewer will need to do the same to get with the unusual rhythms of this amazing saga--with the mediocre print, with a narrative that at first seems scattered, and with a culture totally different from much of anything encountered today. But it is worth it, and by the end, you may be totally mesmerized by the quiet force of a man who inadvertently becomes a hero, by powerful film editing from Podovkin that steadily reaches a stunning conclusion, and, if you allow yourself to immerse yourself in Mongolia in the early part of the last century, an experience unlike anything in modern film.

Storm Over Asia (1928) : Brief Review -

A great attempt to panegyrize Soviet propaganda through a Mangolian revolt against British. During 20s and 30s decade almost all the foreign language cinemas were doing fine with Propoganda films, actually even better than Hollywood. Storm Over Asia is another fine example of it but sadly not very popular. Thankfully it has made it to the list of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die hence it came in my watchlist otherwise i don't think i would have ever heard of this film. It doesn't matter what propaganda film tries to prove, i only care about cinematic aspects of the filmmaking unless it goes terribly wrong with its conviction over any revolutionary subject. Storm Over Asia is the story about the unknown heir of the great Genghis Khan. After a run-in with the law, a Mongolian man becomes a fugitive and joins the Russian Civil War. He thrashes the opportunistic friendliness of British army and gathers his people to fight for their freedom. In 120 minutes, this film could have been more gripping. I don't know why but it looked little slow. Practically, the climax deserved more time than what it got and i think that quick-ripped conclusion could have been much bigger and better. That momentum was missing which was earlier there in the first half. The film has some issues with the intertitles too. The characters act but the intertitle appears even before we see them talking on screen. So, it feels like a rehearsed puppet show than a silent feature film. I think that can be overlooked considering the standards of the filmmaking of that particular cinema industry. Otherwise, it's a very good movie with detailed information and grand presentation. I don't know much about the history of that particular subject but i liked the sense of historic storytelling of the director Vsevolod Pudovkin. Few erros but overall an enjoyable flick.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.