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Close to Eden

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Director
  
Music director
  
Country
  
Soviet Union

7.8/10
IMDb

Genre
  
Drama

Duration
  

Close to Eden movie poster

Language
  
Mongolian / Russian / Mandarin

Release date
  
1991

Writer
  
Jacques Gary, Rustam Ibragimbekov (screenplay), Rustam Ibragimbekov (story), Nikita Mikhalkov (story)

Initial release
  
September 25, 1991 (France)

Screenplay
  
Rustam Ibragimbekov, Jacques Gary

Cast
  
(Sergei),
Larisa Kuznetsova
(Marina),
Biao Wang
(Van Biao), (Pagma)

Similar movies
  
Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov, Set in Mongolia, Movies about Russia

Urga close to eden 1 11


Urga is a 1991 film by Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov. It was 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.

Contents

Close to Eden movie scenes

Close to eden trailer 1992


Plot

Close to Eden wwwgstaticcomtvthumbmovieposters13446p13446

A Mongolian shepherd Gombo lives in a yurt in Inner Mongolia with his wife, three children, and mother. They are portrayed as unsophisticated and traditional people. Gombo desires relations with his wife, to try for a fourth child, which puts his wife at unease due to Chinese law. Sergei, an intoxicated, buffoonish Russian truck driver, has stranded himself by driving his truck into a river, and is picked up by Gombo, taken to his family's yurt, to join him in dinner. Gombo's family are particularly taken with Sergei's back tattoos, later revealed to be music notation for the popular waltz, "On the Hills of Manchuria". Gombo and Sergei become mutually dependent despite their language and cultural differences. Gombo and Sergei go into the nearest city together, where Gombo is supposed to buy contraceptives (condoms); buying a television set and other goods, but not contraceptives due to the drugstore staff being women. Sergei, a former army bandsman, becomes drunk and sings "On the Hills of Manchuria" in a nightclub, with the band playing from tattoos on his back. He is arrested and bailed out of jail by Gombo.

Close to Eden Close to Eden 1991 IMDb

Gombo returns home, and along the way stops to eat. He has a strange dream featuring his drunken, horseback-riding relative as Genghis Khan and his wife as the Khan's wife. In the dream both he and Sergei are captured and killed and the TV set is destroyed. Gombo awakes from his dream and arrives home with the TV. He and his family switch between watching a broadcast of the President of the USA and a badly sung variety show. Gombo's wife, although saddened when learning that he bought no contraceptives, leaves the yurt, inviting him to follow her with a gesture. Gombo follows her out onto the prairie, sticking an urga (a long stick with a lasso on the end used to capture animals) into the ground in a traditional signal that a couple is being intimate. A voiceover from Gombo's fourth son, who was conceived at this time, concludes the film, and a chimney belching smoke stands where Gombo placed his urga.

Awards

Close to Eden Close to Eden Movie Posters From Movie Poster Shop

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.

Influence

Close to Eden Close to Eden 1991 MUBI

The film is credited with sparking Czech writer Petra Hůlová's initial interest in Mongolia, leading to study, then an exchange year in Ulan Bator, and then to her first novel, Paměť mojí babičce (2002; literally "in memory of my grandmother"), in English translation published as All This Belongs to Me (2009, Northwestern University Press).


Close to Eden Russian Film Symposium 2006


Close to Eden Nikita Mikhalkov Urga AKA Territory of Love AKA Close to Eden

Close to Eden Urga Close to eden YouTube

References

Close to Eden Wikipedia
Close to Eden IMDb Close to Eden themoviedb.org