The eight months actually becomes three years and although he had the opportunity to continue his education, he returns to marry Somiya (now played by Renhua Na) who is now pregnant by his friend. Unable to forgive her for her mistake or admit that his own inability to express his intentions to her and their adoptive grandmother was partially the cause of her betrayal, he leaves, even as his grandmother warns him that she knows he and Somiya truly love each other and perhaps, more tellingly, that at least he knows that Somiya, unlike the grandmother, can bear children. Without an education, what other position do women hold in such a society?
Over a decade later, when Bayinbulag (now played by the Taiwan-based Mongolian musician Tengger) returns, he realizes the full extent of the tragedy resulting from his stubbornness.
There is no happy ending, and there is nothing maudlin about the acting or the story itself. The real stars seem to be the music and the steppes of Mongolia, lushly green in the spring and gray and white in the winter.
If you, as Bayinbulag, have reached a certain age where perhaps you too will think of things that could have been and yet, because of pride or plan stupidity, you now regret and are haunted by what-ifs, then this movie will remind you of those moments when you made the wrong choices. In this uncluttered setting, almost untouched by modern technology (we never see Bayinbulag's city life but we do see motorized vehicles), this tale of regret is stripped down to a simple form, without the distractions of the modern industrialized world yet without sentimentalizing the pastoral life. I chanced upon Xie Fei's The Mongolian Tale while looking for something, anything about Mongolia and found a small gem in a lovely setting.
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