Country: Soviet Union
Released: 1928
Genre: Drama, Propaganda
Directed by: Vsevolod Pudovkin
Written by: Osip Brik; I. Novokshonov
Potomok Chingiskhana is
not a bad film.
Boy, ain’t that a resounding endorsement?
Let me try that again:
Potomok Chingiskhana (a.k.a "The Heir to Genghis Khan," a.k.a Storm Over Asia) stars Valéry Inkijinoff as Bair the Mongol, and if you couldn’t tell by the
fact that our protagonist it titled “the Mongol,” Potomok really wears its race relations on its sleeve. In any
case, Bair is a poor trapper, etching out the best life he can on the harsh
Asian step by selling furs at a local bazaar. One day he comes across a rare
white fox, which we are told is worth a fortune. However, the bazar’s evil,
white capitalist fur merchant swindles Bair, effectively purchasing the rare pelt for a
fraction of the cost. When Bair protests, a scuffle ensues and he is forced to
flee to the mountains, where he joins group of communist guerrilla fighters. Eventually
he is captured by the British authorities (who control Mongolia in this alternate-history), who discover that he is a direct descendant of
Genghis Khan and decide to establish him as a puppet ruler of the region. The
film ends with Bair revolting against his imperialist masters and leading the
whole of Mongolia in rebellion, just like Genghis Khan would have wanted I guess.
If that plot summery sounds too cohesive I apologize, that's my bad. In truth, keeping track of the film’s tenuous narrative thread becomes
increasingly difficult as the plot progresses, largely because numerous
subplots and characters are set up but then seemingly abandoned at the drop of
a hat. For example, the communist guerrilla fighters are planted with seeds of
personality and greater thematic purpose that are never really reaped. After being introduced to this very tight-knit group of rag-tag fighters they are immediately forgotten, and we never see them again. The same treatment is given to Bair’s family, which feels bizarre given the amount of pathos the film establishing for them. The result of these starts and stops is that I genuinely didn't know where the story was going. But not in a good, "what'll happen next" kind of way. More in a confusing, "what is happening" kind of way.
This confusion is compounded by an weirdly indecisive tone. Indecisive because,
and I never thought I’d say this, it does
not condemn capitalism enough! What I mean is that Potomok is a propaganda film that forgot its propaganda, and the result is that I didn't really know what the film wanted to be. Besides the
fur merchant character there is no character that really embodies the evil
industrialist or whatever. Sure, the British officers are bad imperialists, but
no more than, you know, British
officers would be. I mean it’s the fucking British imperial army. They’re
whole modus operandi is imperialism, and just having them there doesn’t really
scream propaganda any more than a film like, I don’t know, Zulu does.
I guess what I’m saying is that what this movie really
needed was a monocle-wearing capitalist squeezing a lemon whilst cackling withholding bread from starving orphans, a la Strike. Without that the film comes across as too…nuanced. Now I’m
not saying that nuance is a bad thing. However it's an unintentional nuance. The film presents this very clear propagandistic set-up but doesn't go the extra mile of really caricaturing its themes. It felt like director Vsevolod Pudovkin was tasked with
making a propaganda movie and half-assed it. Sure, propaganda is exhausting but at least its focused and consistent.
Or perhaps its trying to be intentionally subtle. Halfway through I
began wondering about tropes and their relation to propaganda. Perhaps
understanding the film’s message requires familiarization with certain narrative
cues that were a part of shared cultural discourse within the Soviet Union at the time. Similar to how when we, being exposed to Hollywood film discourse, we see a down on his luck schlub
with a heart of gold we are conditioned to root for him. Perhaps the shared
language of Soviet film precludes explanation, and when the audience sees a
group of finely dressed flappers they are instinctively identify them as ‘bad
capitalists’ because that's how the trope is utilize within their cinematic culture. This raises a lot of interesting questions, like how this kind of
cultural discourse is disseminated or consumed differently when it is based
around overt propaganda, and whether it is still prevalent in post-Soviet
Russian in some, more subtle fashion.
But I’ll leave these to more practiced film scholars. I'll just say that as someone who isn't familiar with Soviet narrative tropes the movie just came off as tonally inconsistent.
Let me briefly nitpick the plot some more before moving on
to the good. First off, the British were never in Mongolia so there’s that little historical inaccuracy.
Second, why does being a descendant of Genghis Khan matter for legitimizing a
ruler? Motherfucker hadn’t been relevant for eight-hundred years by that point,
and even if he was he wasn’t exactly known for his celibacy and good decorum. One
in two-hundred men in the world are
direct descendants of the Great Khan. Let me repeat that: One in Two-Hundred! Why
is this jerk so special? Also, I find the calls for racial unity to be rather
galling considering the Soviet Union’s less than stellar policies towards its
non-Russian minorities at the time.
Nitpicks and racial hypocrisy aside however there’s a lot to
admire, for the first-half at least. Pudovkin takes full advantage of the
local with wide, expansive shots of the Asian steppe that look like something out of
Lawrence of Arabia, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if David Lean was
directly inspired by Potomok.
Furthermore, I appreciate effort to accurately portray indigenous lifestyles. I
can’t say if it was totally accurate but it sure felt like it, more so than
most contemporary films at least. It was refreshing to see the
film cast mostly indigenous actors. Even if the actual government was abhorrent
to these peoples, this film could of fooled me.
As for aesthetics some of you Eisenstein enthusiasts will be
happy to learn that the montage is alive and well, and Pudovkin makes heavy use of
it throughout the film. Not surprising considering how much the Soviet
government themselves pushed montage as “da best” cinematic style ever. In any
case, Pudovkin offers what is probably one of the most thematically interesting
uses of montage I’ve ever seen… ever. Halfway through the movie the head
British officer and his wife are set to travel to a Buddhist temple to
establish diplomatic ties with the local lama. The movie fast cuts between them grooming themselves for the occasion and monks making
offerings to a statue of the Buddha, drawing direct parallels between the “rituals”
of both cultures. The sequence is remarkably well edited and, while a tad on
the nose, draws an interesting cross-cultural parallel between the Buddha and the
self-deified British.
Following this there’s a fairly funny moment when the “grand,
wise” lama is revealed to be a child which I appreciated both for its humor and
its accurate display of reincarnation lineages of central Asian Buddhism (or at
least Tibetan Buddhism, I can't really speak for Mongolian schools). However the
film just kind of loses steam after that, and the subplot of establishing Bair
as a kind of puppet king comes out of nowhere and isn’t compelling enough to
carry the remaining forty minutes.
Overall, like most other Soviet films on this list so far,
it is a visually stunning film with a half-baked plot. Many would say
that that’s good enough, but personally I’ve never been one to be taken by stunning
visuals if there’s isn’t at least a semi-compelling plot to frame all the pretty
stuff around. Still, it’s not a bad flick, and I would actually recommend it to fans of early film, just don’t be
surprised if you find yourself gradually losing interest after the first hour
or so.
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