Urga (film)
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| Urga | |
|---|---|
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| Directed by | Nikita Mikhalkov |
| Produced by | Michel Seydoux Jean-Louis Piel René Cleitman |
| Written by | Rustam Ibragimbekov Nikita Mikhalkov |
| Starring | Bayaertu Badema Vladimir Gostyukhin |
| Music by | Eduard Artemyev |
| Cinematography | Vilen Kalyuta |
| Editing by | Joëlle Hache |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films (US) Curzon Video (UK) |
| Release date(s) | 1991 |
| Running time | 109 mins (US VHS) 114 mins (UK VHS) 118 mins (Russia) |
| Language | Mongolian / Russian / Mandarin |
| IMDb profile | |
Urga is a 1991 film by Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov. It is released in North America as Close to Eden. It depicts the friendship between a Russian truck driver and a Mongolian shepherd in Inner Mongolia. The film was an international co-production between companies based in Russia and France.
[edit] Plot
The Mongolian shepherd Gombo lives in a yurt in Inner Mongolia with his wife, three children and grandmother. They are happy with their uncomplicated rural lives. His wife is expecting another child, and birth control is unavailable where they live. A Russian truck driver named Sergi is stranded nearby, and finds his way to their house, where he and Gombo become friends despite their cultural differences. Gombo and Sergi go into the nearest city together, where Gombo buys a television set and attempts to buy contraceptives, but decides not to when he realizes everyone at the drugstore is a woman. Sergi, a former army bandsman, sings "Hills of Manchuria" in a nightclub, as the band plays from the sheet music tattooed on his back. He is arrested and then bailed out of jail by Gombo.
Gomebo returns home, and along the way stops and takes a nap. He has a strange dream featuring his drunken, horse riding relative as Attila the Hun and his wife as Attila's wife. In the dream both he and Sergei are captured and killed. Gombo wakes and arrives home, with the television, and he and his family watch alternately the President of America speaking and a badly sung variety show. The movie ends with Gombo and his wife going into the fields, bringing the Urga (a long stick with a lasso on the end used to capture animals) which is then stuck into the ground far away in the fields, a signal that a couple is being intimate.
[edit] Awards
Urga won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and Best European Film at the European Film Awards. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and for a Golden Globe in the same category.
[edit] External links
| Preceded by Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead |
Golden Lion winner 1991 |
Succeeded by The Story of Qiu Ju |
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