The world moves fast, and everyone knows it. New technology is increasingly becoming a part of everyday life, no matter where you are in the world. There is a mixture of fear and excitement in the air, as people learn to work, socialize and play in a multitude of new and innovative ways. But do these new ways of living connect us to our neighbors or alienate us from them? When new ways of living become normalized, what happens to old cultural traditions? Director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir explores these questions in her debut feature film ‘City of Wind' to astounding effect: It is a movie that is both profoundly thought-provoking and deeply sentimental.
City of Wind is screening at Cinemasia
The movie delivers its message through a character study of protagonist Ze, a 17 year-old boy living with his family in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital city. Ever since he was a kid, Ze has had a peculiar gift: He can see the unseen, embody spirits of the deceased and predict things that will happen in the future. Ze's parents were attuned to their boy's gift ever since he was young, and he has been a shaman ever since, visiting residents of Ulaanbaatar in his shamanic deel (traditional Mongolian garb) to examine their ailments, speak through spirit tongues and lay out their futures for them.
Ze's world is changing, though: He is growing older, learning about the rapidly-evolving world around him and trying to discern where old traditions like spiritual divination end to make space for new ways of living. This all happens through a chance encounter with Maralaa, a girl his age who he happens to meet while performing his duties as a shaman. Although Maralaa is skeptical of his practices and calls him a hoax upon their first encounter, she quickly warms up to him. As sparks fly and the two teens begin to spend all their spare time together, Ze must learn what it means to be an adult living in a strange world filled with new technological developments and new forms of spirituality.
While Ze is more connected to an old, traditional form of spirituality passed onto him through his family members, Maralaa represents a new age in Mongolia. She finds spirituality through cheap thrills, like through going to malls and shoplifting or losing herself on the dance floors during Ulaanbaatar's most calamitous nightlife hours. These two worlds clash in a way that is as authentic as it is emotionally devastating. ‘City of Wind' is a meditation on love: The first love between two teens, as well as a love for a culture that is rapidly moving from one way of life to another. Dogs can be heard barking in the distance throughout the film's entirety, and well as the relentless howl of the aggressive winds that are all-too-common in the region.
‘City of Wind' is a coming-of-age film, and Purev-Ochir does not try to hide this fact: It has all the tropes that coming-of-age movies typically contain. Yet what makes ‘City of Wind' so original is not its formula, but its setting and cultural nuance: Surely viewers have never seen a coming-of-age film starring a Mongolian shaman as its protagonist. With remarkable performances bu Tergel Bold-Erdene and Nomin-Erdene Ariunbyamba as star-crossed lovers Ze and Maralaa, director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir's first full-length film is a must-see in Mongolian New Wave cinema.
