Close to Eden (1991) User Reviews

Hard-to-find Russian classic

[joesorce · 9/10 · 11 August 2005]

One of the most beautiful and lyrical films that I have ever seen, one of those experiences where you walk into a theatre not knowing what to expect and walk out of the theatre wanting to drag everyone you've ever known into the theatre to see it.

I can't imagine why this Oscar-nominated film is not available on DVD but it's well worth your annual haul-out-the-VHS-player-one-more-time weekend look. At first you'll feel like you're eavesdropping on something very private, but by the end of the film you may wish that you were one of the family.

I don't' like to give away plot points when commenting on a movie, in fact I don't even like to watch previews-of-coming-attractions because they give away too much of the story. I like to walk into a movie blind, and trust me on this one, you'll be glad you made the journey.

To move ahead, or clinging onto the past

[dy158 · 7/10 · 16 April 2013]

It is a part of Inner Mongolia which seemed to be cut out from the outside world. But the city-bred Pagma is trying to resist the advances of her husband Gombo out on the plains. It would turn out that the married couple has three children, while Chinese law (which Inner Mongolia is part of China) limits Mongolian families to two children.

There are also signs of modern influences in the hut the family lives in, even if Gombo raises sheep, cattle and horses, leading the live of a typical Mongolian nomad. A generator for electric light in the hut, Gombo's son wearing a baseball cap, his daughter who plays an accordion which was given to her by an uncle who lives in the city, the neighbour who seems to be drunk most of the time whenever Gombo and Pagma sees him who gives them a movie poster and swearing that it looks like his brother in America which actually shows Sylvester Stallone in Rambo.

Gombo's seemingly normal life would be disrupted when he rescued Sergei, a Russian construction worker building the transcontinental road in Mogolia where his truck went to the edge of a lake. After initial awkward exchanges which happened at the hut when Sergei initially wondered what to do with the sheep which Gombo had killed and skinned, the two men from very different backgrounds began to feel at ease with each other.

But there is also Pagma who had told Gombo to go to the city to get a television set and some condoms, other than Sergei wondering why he has to work outside of Russia while trying to get to grips with the demise of the Russian soul at a nightclub in the city with a fellow compatriot, which came at a time when the Soviet Union has already collapsed. Even with the unlikely friendship, there is the constant juxtaposition of what the intrusions of the modern age has in store for the two men who wants to cling on to their respective identities.

It is not a film to understand easily on the surface as it forces to look at one's own identity as it connects with the world around him/her, but there are also the comic elements in the film like in the form of the drunken neighbour of Gombo and Pagma to provide the comic relief.

For those who may be unaware of the various references shown and mentioned throughout the film, it can seem confusing at times, even towards the ending. But it is a reminder of how there are times when one wants to move forward with the times, there always seemed to be something holding one back reminding one's own identity in the first place.

Fantastic... You'll laugh, you'll cry... It'll change your life!

[zahhman · 9/10 · 21 August 2006]

A fantastic movie. There is no 'Docu-Drama' category is there...? Documentary, the life of the Mongols on the shrinking steppes of Mongolia(claimed by China, backed up against Russia), and all that that entails... Then the dramatic, scripted story introduced. Sweetly funny, and lots of hilarious tidbits involved.

I recommend this movie heartily, and if you don't like it, I'll eat a Yak patty! M'Kay?

The cinematography is lovely, lush imagery, and quite the eyefull. The story is great, comical and valid. The clash between modernization and 'the old ways' is nicely dealt with.

It is subtitled, as it's a mixture of Mongol, Mandarin, and Russian.

Get it!

one of the few films that makes me believe in humanity

[peter-209 · 10/10 · 6 August 1999]

One of the best films I know: beautiful, pensive, playful, realistic, poetic, humane, up-lifting. In the barrage of trash, one of the few films that makes me believe in humanity. I love this film so much that I arranged home projections for my friends several times. With all the up beat that I am mentioning, it is very open and truthful. Where in an American movie could you see an on-screen slaughter of a real lamb? And it was not ugly or gory at all! On the contrary, it was very decent and sensitive, teaching us respect for Nature.

And another little point. Has anybody noticed the inconspicuous little voice-over at the end which essentially makes "Urga" science fiction?!

One of the most beautifully humane movies ever.

[Fafouin · 10/10 · 11 January 1999]

I had to embrace my aunt after seeing this movie for having brought me to see it. The images are beautiful and the relationships are, at times, complex but always touching. Never have I experienced a filmmaker able to capture the beautiful humanity of each of his characters and their gestures. This film is a treasure and quite possibly my favorite film of all time.

One of the best movies of the 90's

[adipocea · 10/10 · 11 April 2008]

What Mikhalkov and his actors did here is unbelievable. I mean, let aside the immense value of this film, I keep wondering how did they do that? How the hack came such an idea to them, to make such a...how should I say, different, crazy, enormous movie ? How did they make those kids play such terrific performances?! Not one of them, but three...You will say that they weren't really uneducated kids from the steppes but educated kids with school that were just acting. Yeah, but how the hell can a kid from the city slip under the skin of a character that lives his entire life in the steppe?! And the performance of Vladimir Gostyukin is nothing less than BRILLIANT. Stands on the same level with the great performances of the great American and British actors, I mean Hanks, Hackman, Hopkins, etc. Oh, it was so easy to screw it up, this movie. A good straight old American movie with this theme would have been like this : the guys are living in the steppe, poetry, here comes the Russian, communication, friendship, then the balance is disturbed, violence come, outside forces that try to ruin the life of the characters, the characters fight, win, the Russian leaves, they say goodbye, they cry, last shot, the Russian appears at the horizon to see them again. Nothing like that in this movie. It is SOOO smart!!!!! Bravo for the Golden Lion, perfectly deserved!

All time favorite

[computejack · 10/10 · 9 November 2009]

If you ever wondered how an ordinary life could have been like without constant bombardment of television, ads and all the trappings of a hierarchical society, this movie beautifully depicts the life such a family, in the process of being unconsciously absorbed by the modernity the rest of us are so familiar with. The lead guy's performance as he tries to bemusedly make sense of the city and its services and warez is very touching. Its sad to see a strong, capable, independent soul finely tuned to the nature he is part of being slowly displaced by the "greater" civilisation, but its also an uplifting narrative of escapisim to a place where the contradictions and pretensions of the organised society does not exist.

Heavenly...well-deserved title Close To Eden

[drjude518 · 10/10 · 1 April 2002]

I watched this film for the first time several years ago and was riveted by it. Always expecting the worst to happen, I was sure that around every corner an unexpected calamity would befall these beloved characters. But none ever did! I was filled with elation from the first minute to the closing credits. Bubble wrap never looked so intriguing! The Mongolian Steppes never appeared so appealing. I just can't wait for this film to appear in DVD format. Along with the Milagro Beanfield War, I consider this film one of my all time favourites. Enjoy and be elated!

Haunted by Grasses

[Chris_Middlebrow · 7 September 2001]

The best definition I can give to movies I greatly admire is that they take me someplace I don't expect to go.

It can be a special location. It can be a special moment. It can be a special revelation.

Close to Eden, as this movie has been titled in the United States, offers the entire combination. A 1992 Russian nominee for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, the movie opens on the vast grassy expanses of the steppes of Mongolia, where the setting initially is evocative of a certain timelessness. The historical instant cannot be ascertained confidently, even within an error margin of a few centuries. Nor do we know what the movie designs ultimately to tell us.

Such uncertainty begins to give way as a vehicle and visitor enter the scene and are involved in a mishap that results from first sleepiness and then fright. The nature of the vehicle and visitor narrow the reference era to an accuracy level of mere decades. From there, the plot leads to a likable nuclear family of herders, to which a grandmother is attached. We follow their story and soon learn when, among the vast expanses of time, it occurs.

The theme here is subtly...ecological...in three parts. The first part concerns the lifestyle of the family, and its self-sufficiency. The second part concerns the travel the father undertakes, and the reason for the travel, an assigned errand he seeks to accomplish in the course of that journey. The third part concerns the conclusion, where the issue of time again intervenes. There is in fact no timelessness, but rather its passage. The narrator in A River Runs Through It is "haunted by waters." Similarly, the ending of Close to Eden is haunted by grasses. Its status as one of the great foreign films arrives in the last few knockout minutes.

They Can Make 'Em Bad In Other Places, Too

[ccthemovieman-1 · 2/10 · 20 August 2007]

Hollywood sometimes gets a bad rap. Whenever you hear of a "garbage" film, the name Hollywood often is used. I have news for you: "garbage" films are made ALL over the world. Nobody has a monopoly on them. The Brits, Spaniards, Italians, Japanese, Brazlians, etc., etc., all have their share of scummy films. Here, we get a collaboration of the Russians, Mongols and Chinese that combine to make a lousy movie.

The Mongol kids were cute, but that was cute but that was about it for appealing facets of the film. The main character was profane and unlikable and the film had some stupid dialog throughout. That was probably the worst aspect of it, along with the fact that there was very little story here. It's mainly vignettes about a clash in cultures.

I did like some of the cinematography, the panoramic shots of the "steppes" being the best. It was some this wonderful scenery that kept me going in this film, which will bore most audiences: I guarantee you. This is slow-going and not a real happy story and ending, either.

If you have ever wondered what visiting Mongolia ..... see this wonderful film first.

[monabe · 8 February 2000]

Urga is an excellent example of the magic of film in allowing people of very different cultures to communicate their various realities and common humanity. To someone like myself coming from a "modern developed culture", I found this tale of a culture that has only recently experienced the impact of "western" society, an entrancing and wonderful experience. It is visually beautiful, frequently wildly funny and life-affirming. For an unusual and extremely accessible film experience - or as a primer for the intending visitor - Urga can be heartily recommended.

Timeless Beauty

[johan-16 · 10/10 · 22 October 1998]

This movie shows us a world without any borders, laws. Just a bunch of people who live in a superb nature, which fills the wide moviescreen in its endless beauty. It reminds us, how far we are away from nature, from our roots of our ancesters. That's why I think this movie appeals the people from all over the world. And especially those who like the widescreen movies from John Huston to Visconti. Only for the superb shots you can see it over and over again. It's, without any doubt a timeless beaty

Nikita Mihalkov is the best thing that has ever happened to Film in the History of it. This man is so talented beyond belief.

[ajrichmang · 10/10 · 23 January 2008]

Nikita Mihalkov is a god when it comes to film. The guy below me is probably a not very smart, Hollywood films are 20% good and the rest is garbage just like your comment. I have seen but a few good American films the rest is the same old crap. I would like to say that American films have no life its always the same. This film has an amazing plot with its twist and turns make it a master piece. I am just trying to get my point across but the policy won't let me have anything smalled than 10 lines. I would love to me Nikita Mihalkov and just let him know that he is such a great director. So please when you see this really try to learn to speak and understand the Russian language so you can actually grasp what the movies is all about and really suck in the meaning of it.

Funny and

[billcr12 · 8/10 · 10 May 2012]

The Russians are not usually known for their sense of humor, but Urga proves that there is always an exception to the rule. A man living in a yurt with his wife and three children wishes to continue a sex life with his wife, but she does not want any more kids.

A Russian truck driver, Sergei is driving through a field and ends up with the front wheels stuck at the edge of a lake. He finds the yurt and he and Gombo become friends despite a communication problem. They travel to a city to buy condoms, but Gombo gets side tracked and brings home a TV set and other goodies instead. He has a dream in which Genghis Khan is married to his wife and the conquerer kills him and Sergei and destroys the television, all while riding a horse.

Gombo's wife is furious at him and walks out of the yurt, and he follows her to a field. The ending is pretty funny.

Flawed, but cherishable.

[albertine simonet · 8/10 · 23 February 2000]

This is a film of so many pleasures - the delineation of a culture not usually represented in the mainstream; an empathetic, comic-sad, character-driven narrative; an awe-inspiring, Lean-like evocation of the vast lonely Mongolian landscape and its dwarfing of its inhabitants; its moments of genuine hilarity and sadness - that you are fully prepared to forgive its glaring flaws - its 'Westernising' an Oriental subject matter (lush composition, mobile camerawork and editing, excessive close-ups, epic music), unoriginal city/country dichotomy (although this is more complex than at first appears) and its maddening fudge into apocalyptic fantasy.

Territory of Love

[Zhorzhik-Morzhik · 9/10 · 8 March 2020]

"Close to Eden" is a drama by Nikita Mikhalkov. The last of the most successful Soviet films in the world, the main award of the Golden Lion Venice Film Festival. The action of an amazing parable in which the fate of the Mongolian shepherd and the Russian driver fancifully intertwines takes place in the endless steppes south of Ulan Bator. One of the best roles of Vladimir Gostyukhin. The music of Eduard Artemiyev, like the film itself, captivates the viewer.

Worse movie ever, IMHO

[claudiano · 1/10 · 18 December 2006]

A men, his wife, some children and the grandmother live in a little house on the Mongolian outback, faraway from anything. When a truck driver gets stuck with his truck nearby, a cultural exchanging process begins to take place and, after all, they do learn a few things from each other...

From the very beginning until the very end, however, nothing interesting happens. No action, no nothing. Unbelievable...

It is long, boring, tedious and uninteresting story. As a matter of fact this movie is the very definition of "boring". Certainly the WORSE movie I ever saw. TOTAL WASTE OF TIME.

As a matter of fact, I can hardly believe that so many people voted around a seven/eight for this movie. It IS a ZERO star. Trust-me!

May be I am missing something.... or a lot of imagination to find this movie "interesting" or something like that... Honest.

A Plains like an Ocean.

[futures-1 · 28 June 2005]

"Close to Eden" (Russian, 1992): Living on the simple, harsh, flowing Steppes of China/Mongolia, we meet a traditional family. By the photography and music, it's clear from the start that we should to accept, if not admire, their difficult but very satisfying life. Yes, there are signs of contemporary urban society – the young son wears a baseball cap, the daughter plays the accordion, and the wife wants her husband to travel to the nearest city for condoms (they are already over the legal limit of children), and a television. Eventually in the position of helping a stranded Russian truck driver, the husband travels with him to an urban "center" and deals with "city" life. "Close to Eden" patiently mutates from a beautifully straight forward "document", to one full of symbols - not just the threat of encroaching urban blight, but reminders of their proud racial past. Eventually narrated by the fourth son (any more than two is illegal in rural China), and named after the great Genghis Khan, he completes the story long after his grandmother, parents, and original hut are gone.

I was really Close to Eden

[aleksandarsarkic · 9/10 · 23 May 2017]

What an experience, this movie is too beautiful. I discovered this movie when i searched some stuff about Monoglia and Mongols, i am for long time very interested in that part of the world, and on one site Urga was highly recommended movie, so i say to myself that i must watch it, and it was as i say in the beginning one of the most beautiful cinematographic experience i have ever had. Everything about this movie is beautiful, from landscapes, cast, music, atmosphere, relationship between characters, really everything is in place, incredible directing by Nikita Mikhalkov, definitely i will watch more of his films in the future. Very nice acting by Vladimir Gostyukhin, you will really love his character and also other Mongolian actors did a nice job, everything is very natural, and it is the best way of acting. When you watch this movie, you will smile, you will cry, and at end of it you will feel total serenity, feeling that you were really Close to Eden.

M

Extraordinary

[squidocto · 10/10 · 1 July 2021]

An extraordinary film. Absolutely heartbreaking that it seems to have not survived the transition to our streaming-content present (as of july 2021). Completely unique mood, slow yet full of surprises.

Veteran Russian writer-director Nikita Mikhalkov's film about the impact of modern civilization on an idyllic part of Mongolia.

[khanbaliq2 · 8/10 · 7 June 2010]

A Mongolian herdsman and his wife live a simple yet idyllic life which is interrupted when he rescues a Russian lorry-driver who has crashed into a river and brings him home to his family.

Urga is a gentle, almost dreamy film that contrasts consumerism and the stress of modern living with a less cluttered way of life that scarcely exists in the developed world. Many subsequent films (some of them also set in Mongolia) have taken their cues from the themes here. 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.

Road movie without roads

[frankde-jong · 8/10 · 15 July 2022]

The title of the film "Urga" refers to a Mongolian stick with a lasso. This lasso is meant for hunting, but sometimes the stick is put into the ground of the Mongolian steppe as a sign that a man and woman are asking for some privacy.

At the beginning of the film the Urga is used in the last indicated way with a family expansion as the result. This family expansion becomes a problem in the light of Chinese one child policy (the film is situated in inner Mongolia, which is part of China). The woman sends her husband to the big city to buy condoms, and a road movie begins. En route the husband meets a Russian truck driver and they become friends.

The friendship between a Russian and a local reminds of "Dersu Uzala" (1975, Akira Kurosawa), except for the fact that in "Dersu Uzala" the local is a Siberian and in "Urga" it is a Mongolian. Just like in "Dersu Uzala" the habitat of the Russian is the city and the habitat of the Mongolian is the countryside / nature. Where "Dersu Uzala" is a highly philosophical movie, "Urga is more of a comedy showing the uneasiness of the lead characters when they are outside their natural habitat, however without making a fool of them. By the way both films share the dazzling beauty of the (Siberian respectively Mongolian) countryside.

At the end of the movie the husband comes home without condoms but with a television set. The programs on television turn out to be so boring that the television is rather a pro conception than an anti conception device. Just like in "All that heaven allows" (1955, Douglas Sirk) television can be no substitute for human relations.

At the end of the movie we see an Urga sticked in the ground changing into a factory chimney. This metamorphosis symbolises the advance of the cities at the expense of the countryside. For me this matamorphisis was as powerfull as the changing of a bone in a spaceship in "2001: a space odyssey" (1968, Stanley Kubrick)

I love this movie

[fmkvfmgyf · 10/10 · 25 September 2021]

This movie is filmed so beautifully. Watching it feels like remembering a cherished long past memory of my own childhood....though I grew up in the mountains of Montana and have never laid eyes on the Mongolian Steppe.

The storyline is like a haiku on being human. They are hurrying to the modern life, but we (the viewers) know how that ends.( Zoom meetings, traffic jams, pollution.). I truly wish I could stand on that grassland and feel the wind rush by chapping my cheeks red. The scenery absolutely haunts me.

Overdone theme of lost innocence

[allyjack · 7 September 1999]

The film's closing stretch provides one of the most memorable depictions of creeping dysfunction as the family sits in front of the TV, watching either Bush-Gorbachev, or else not much of anything, with their Stallone "Cobra" poster propped up behind the TV. That aside, the movie's theme of lost innocence and cultural decay is perhaps a bit overdone (although not as overdone as the English title imposed on the movie would suggest) - indeed, there's almost nothing else to the film except somewhat ponderous - if inherently spectacular - shots of landscape and documentary-style observation, offset by the boisterous intrusion of the lost Russian (who in his drunken escapades brings it as close to a knockabout comedy as conceivable) and strange, strenuous fantasy sequences that drive home the notion of futile ambition, but are too contrived for comfort. Despite all reservations though, the movie often transcends mere exoticism - their early morning discussion about condoms for example is touching and convincing. as well as faintly surreal (from a Western perspective). The film suggests that traditionalism and modernity CAN actually coexist, which makes their failure to do so all the more poignant; the only way to make sense of the closing voice over is to conclude that it comes from the future, underlining the picture's sense of dislocation.

a meeting of cultures

[lee_eisenberg · 8/10 · 29 July 2023]

Nikita Mikhalkov came to my attention when his "Burnt by the Sun" won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It turned out that he had gotten nominated just two years earlier for "Urga" ("Close to Eden" in English). Made as the Soviet Union was imploding - in fact, it got financed mostly by French money - this movie depicts a Russian truck driver whose truck gets stuck in rural China, leading him to a group of nomadic Mongols who take him under their wing.

Part of it is that I like seeing movies about cultures that we rarely get to see. Even beyond that, this look at a cross-cultural experience outside of modern civilization - but with traces of it encroaching on the Mongols' way of life - is one of the most mystifying movies that I've ever seen. I recommend checking it out.