Mongolian Ping Pong

 

Alright, so it wasn't The Little Shop of Horrors Around the Corner which is what I was thinking. But if you join the Blockbuster movierentalsbymail (tell them I sent you) and type in Little Shop Around the Corner you not only get The Shop Around the Corner but you also get The Little Church Around the Corner which was a 1923 movie written by Olga Printzlau who wrote well over 60 movie scripts as well as several Broadway plays. They all sound good. I'd love to watch them sometime. I love really old movies mainly for the sense of getting a sense of the time. Some are hard to watch. I tried watching a silent movie last week written by and starring Harry Houdini, called Man From Beyond. Too hard to watch due to the incredibly annoying soundtrack but maybe if I played Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd at the same time it would be easier.

Anybody every try to watch the Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon as the soundtrack?

One of the founding members of Pink Floyd was named Richard Wright. He died last month which was the same month as the birth of the writer Richard Wright who we last visited in the McCabe and Mrs. Miller review. His birthday is September 4th which alert siblings and grandmother will note is the birthday of the famous teen rebel with many causes and ping pong extraordinaire, Peter Berlin.
Well, on to an extraordinary movie, Mongolian Ping Pong.

Actually flimed in Inner Mongolia which apparently means it's really China. Who the hell knows anymore? Outer Mongolia is apparently the Chinese name for Mongolia while Inner Mongolia is in China and has a majority of ethnic Han Chinese population with enough real Mongolians left alive to act in this movie. Apparently genocide is a term that hasn't been translated yet. If you want to know anymore then look it up yourself on wikipedia.

What I do know and will gladly share is that Mongolian music (inner or outer) and the technique of throatsinging is absolutely beautiful and the practice probably goes back thousands of years. Sadly, silence goes back even further which means the soundtrack to this movie is mostly that. A little throatsinging at the beginning and end. Just enough to whet your whistle as they say in Texas which also has a history of throatsinging amongst cowboys on the range.

The silence is obviously a way to get us to appreciate the awesome landscape and vast stretches of more awesome landscape. Somewhere inbetween is a remake of The Gods Must Be Crazy but not as funny. Cuter, though. Cute kids. Cute horses. If you want anymore then watch it yourself.