Joan of Arc of Mongolia ©Ulrike Ottinger

Joan of Arc of Mongolia

(Johanna d'Arc of Mongolia)

Ulrike Ottinger

  • 1988
  • Western germany, France
  • Drama comedy
  • 2h45mn
  • Original version with French subtitles
  • Color
Aboard the Trans-Siberian Railway, a group of cosmopolitan Western women are abducted by Ulan Iga, a Mongolian warrior princess.
Balancing epic adventure with philosophical reflection, German filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger questions the possible dialog between civilizations and ethnographic illusions. While she subtly ironizes, through Delphine Seyrig’s character, about the Western need to understand and study all other cultures, in fine it’s the Mongolian world that reveals our own traditions and our post-colonial reflexes that even the best intentions haven’t really erased. Nonetheless, allowed to shoot in Inner Mongolia, Ulrike Ottinger conveys her fascination for its people with a restraint and respect that commands admiration.

Rebeka Warrior

Ulrike Ottinger is an avant-garde German filmmaker that holds a special place in my heart for her weird and multicultural cinema. Ottinger also recently directed Die Blutgräfin, starring Isabelle Huppert as a vampire. Several languages overlap effortlessly in her films, something I also like to do in music. In Joan of Arc of Mongolia, four Western women are abducted from the Trans-Siberian railway by Mongolian princess Ulun Iga and her women warriors and taken to the steppes of inner Mongolia. They share their captors’ nomadic culture, from ceremonies to shamanic dances.

Screenings

09/09 • 21h00 • Screen 100

Presented by Rebeka Warrior

Credits

  • With : Xu Re Huar, Irm Hermann, Delphine Seyrig, Peter Kern, Inés Sastre...
  • Screenplay : Ulrike Ottinger
  • Photography : Ulrike Ottinger
  • Editing : Dörte Völz-Mammarella
  • Music by : Wilhelm Dieter Siebert
  • Production : Hans Kaden