The customs and culture are different, but the human elements of storytelling are proved universal in “Tuya’s Marriage,” a fine film made in Inner Mongolia (and winner of the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival in 2007).
It would be accurate to say that the landscape, which bears some resemblance to the American West, plays the lead role in this movie. But within this difficult world, the domestic problems of a small group of people will occupy us for 90 minutes.
Tuya (played by Yu Nan) is a married woman with two kids who does most of the heavy duties of sheepherding on her land; her husband Bater has been disabled. The work is backbreaking — quite literally. One day Tuya dislocates her back and is forbidden by a doctor to perform any more work.
There is only one solution, with which the community agrees. Tuya must divorce Bater and marry a man who can support her and her children. But she insists that Bater must live with the family, too — a clause that turns away many a prospective suitor.
The film is quite amusing in its parade of men hoping to wed Tuya, who is a pretty, smart woman. But the choices narrow to her sincere but hapless neighbor and a former schoolmate who has made it rich in the oil business.
Chinese filmmaker Wang Quan An never allows this situation to become a National Geographic special. These are not noble exotics but flawed, funny people, who mess up their lives in ways that are similar to the rest of us.
The differences are the vast plains of Mongolia and the absence of all the modern distractions that make city life so harried. This is suitably fascinating, as are the colorful costumes.
The movie’s languid pace is geared toward this unhurried world (a pace shared by other recent movies made here, such as “The Story of the Weeping Camel” and “Mongolian Ping Pong”). I don’t mind slow movies, although this one might have gained a bit of speed as the suspense builds about who Tuya is going to pick as her new husband. That quibble aside, you should still feel the suspense, and the lingering feeling of regret even after she makes her fateful choice.
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