All The Wild Horses (15.)
Directed by Ivo Marloh.
Featuring Devan Horn, Donie Fahy, Richie Killoran, Charlotte Treleaven, Ronald Van Der Velden and Monde Kanyana. 93 mins.
This sounded interesting. A documentary about the world's longest horse race, the Mongol Derby: a study of a great Mongolian sporting tradition and a peek into a totally different way of life and culture, a bit like that Eagle Huntress film with the little girl who charmed everyone that saw it. What a let down: turn's out it's Gee-gee Gumball Rally. A group of privileged westerners using GPS try to cover a 1000km course on wild Mongolian horses, changing mounts at stations every 40 km along the route. Quite a few of them have an equestrian background but many are from the fatuous professions: Commodities trader; Maitre d'; interface developer, Alexander Technique trainer.
Whatever their background, they all seem to have philosophies taken from Land Rover/ Jeep adverts. One of them proclaims, “The idea of the wide open spaces of Mongolia and the feeling of insignificance in that enormous space, along with horses, I felt would give an amazing spiritual experience of an otherworldly place.” Yere, till he fell off.
Some of the riders seem decent enough human beings but you do rather pity Devon, a stocky, flush-faced Greta Gerwig type from Texas who is taking the race very seriously and talks about the need to, “bring my A-game 100% of the time." Outside of her, there isn't a lot of drama in the film and, cynicism aside, I think audiences will struggle to identify with the people on screen or their individual struggles.
Still, some nice scenery.
Directed by Ivo Marloh.
Featuring Devan Horn, Donie Fahy, Richie Killoran, Charlotte Treleaven, Ronald Van Der Velden and Monde Kanyana. 93 mins.
This sounded interesting. A documentary about the world's longest horse race, the Mongol Derby: a study of a great Mongolian sporting tradition and a peek into a totally different way of life and culture, a bit like that Eagle Huntress film with the little girl who charmed everyone that saw it. What a let down: turn's out it's Gee-gee Gumball Rally. A group of privileged westerners using GPS try to cover a 1000km course on wild Mongolian horses, changing mounts at stations every 40 km along the route. Quite a few of them have an equestrian background but many are from the fatuous professions: Commodities trader; Maitre d'; interface developer, Alexander Technique trainer.
Whatever their background, they all seem to have philosophies taken from Land Rover/ Jeep adverts. One of them proclaims, “The idea of the wide open spaces of Mongolia and the feeling of insignificance in that enormous space, along with horses, I felt would give an amazing spiritual experience of an otherworldly place.” Yere, till he fell off.
Some of the riders seem decent enough human beings but you do rather pity Devon, a stocky, flush-faced Greta Gerwig type from Texas who is taking the race very seriously and talks about the need to, “bring my A-game 100% of the time." Outside of her, there isn't a lot of drama in the film and, cynicism aside, I think audiences will struggle to identify with the people on screen or their individual struggles.
Still, some nice scenery.
