Jessye recently came into the office talking about a movie she had seen that was set in Mongolia. So I am having her start a new segment where on the blog were staff members review films from countries where we have projects. Watch out Ebert and Roper and take it away Jessye!

By Jessye Crowe-Rothstein

I dread going to the video store because every time I do I end up standing there blankly staring at the hundreds of titles I’ve never heard of, and lacking any faith that I will make a good decision on what to rent. Last week when I found myself at Blockbuster in this exact situation, I chose a foreign film called Mongolian Ping Pong. I figured a movie with a little kid and a rainbow on the cover would probably suit me better than most of the action and terror new releases, so I gave it a try.

Mongolian Ping Pong is a beautiful film which features absolutely stunning landscape, and watching it gave me a much better sense of what it must be like for our Nomad volunteers to live with a family out on the steppe. The story revolves around a young boy (whose name I won’t even try to remember or spell) who finds a ping pong floating in the river near his family’s ger. Not familiar with the game of ping pong and having never seen a ball before, he and his friends and family go through numerous hilarious theories of what the ball could be, and what use it provides.

The film touches on the Nomad lifestyle as well as the influence of modernity on these dwindling tribes, as the ping pong ball, a television, a motorcycle and many other modern commodities find their way to their front yard. The story itself is a bit slow but very sweet, and I couldn’t stop exclaiming throughout the film how beautiful the scenery was. It was also neat to hear a bit of Mongolian – a very unique language.

These are also themes and issues volunteers will come across and live with on our Nomad Project in Mongolia.

Has anyone else seen it?