Why does Tuya have so many suitors?

Now, that might not be the most interesting question to come out of a screening of the Chinese film Tuya’s Marriage, but it might be the most obvious.  Tuya, after all, seems to be a fairly ordinary—if attractive enough—peasant sheepherder.  She lives in a remote area of the Mongolian steppes with her disabled husband, Bater, and her two young children.  Because Bater is unable to work, and because their remote fresh-water spring is running dry, they hatch an odd plan to divorce—and then find a suitable husband for Tuya, one who will not only keep the sheep farm intact, but will also pay for Bater’s care.

It’s odd enough that the thought would occur to the two of them; it’s odder still that Bater goes along with the idea… and stranger yet that Tuya gets as many offers as she does.  What, exactly, are these men after?

Complicating the tale is an odd romance of sorts between Tuya and Senge, an unhappily married farmer who spends most of his time heartbroken or drunk.  His big dream is to buy a new truck, so his wife will finally be pleased with the status symbol—and let him alone.

We are introduced to Tuya and Senge in two striking sequences.  In the first, Tuya is robed in full Mongolian ceremonial dress, and is losing a struggle to separate her young son from another scrabbling combatant; “Stop fighting!  Stop it!” she cries, and runs past a line of motorcycles—and then horses—into a primitive hut.  We’re not sure why she’s so upset, or into what context we should place this scene; but given the film’s title, we’re pretty sure it has something to do with her wedding.  And we’ll find out the other details soon enough.

We then cut to an apparently earlier time, and Tuya is out on camelback herding her flock.  As the bleating sheep bunch their way down a single-lane dirt track, they part as they pass first a cigarette and then yes, a motorcycle lying in the roadway.  Beside the motorcycle lies a man.  Who is he?  Why is he there?  Why is a motorcycle there?  Is the rider dead?

In these opening sequences, director Wang Quan An delivers old-school storytelling, posing intriguing questions rather than delivering distilled exposition so we can quickly move on to “what happens next.”  And then, even stylistically, Wang keeps us guessing. 

One way to read the film is as modernist realism, an almost cinema verité portrait of what it’s like to be a poor Mongolian sheep farmer.  Even while still on dirt roads, for instance, Bater declares that he’s never been so far from his home; and when the couple first strikes a paved road, we are so psychologically deep into the steppes that it affects us almost as first-hand culture shock.  When Tuya and one of her suitors check into a posh hotel, we almost want to scream, “What’s this!??!”

And yet Tuya doesn’t… which raises another possibility, which is that the film is intended as an impressionist fish-out-of-water farce of sorts, along the lines of what Jim Jarmusch was doing twenty-odd years ago.  Senge’s character, for example, almost at times works as comic relief, similar to Roberto Begnini’s clown in Down By Law.  That would also make sense out sequences in which Senge seems to know things and be in places he couldn’t possible know or be.  And by the time the film’s climactic conflict arrives—the one that finally drives Tuya to tears—we can easily find ourselves thinking that this is all just too much to bear without laughter.

And yet there’s a riveting seriousness to many of the intervening scenes, and the bookending of the narrative with Tuya’s wedding clothes tells us, ultimately, that Wang has got some pretty serious themes on his mind—themes that may be hard to get at from a Western perspective.  But my guess is that Wang is trying to tell a parable about the roles that men and women in Mongolian peasant culture—and world culture at large—are taught to play.  Consider, for instance, the frequency with which Tuya’s daughter is instructed in the art of horse-back riding, or the ways in which both Senge and Bater teach Tuya’s son to fight.  It’s a man’s combative, noise- and technology-driven world, the film suggests, and women—sadly enough, given their natural simplicity—are merely along for the ride.

But who knows?  I could be wildly mistaken with this film.  To Wang’s credit, he keeps things intelligent enough and abstract enough that we’re never quite sure where the story is going, how it’s going to get there, or how Tuya’s dilemma will play out.  It held my attention, though that may in part be because it’s hard to review a film if you let your mind wander.

Just be sure to take a patience pill before you buy your ticket.  This is old-school filmmaking, after all: the furthest thing possible from The Dark Knight.

Tuya’s Marriage is unrated, but I wouldn’t consider this anything more than PG material.  Some startling things happen to Bater and Senge, but nothing you’d have a hard time explaining to your kids.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Greg attended a press screening of Tuya’s Marriage.