Complements to Tamerlane

I am reading Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World by Justin Marozz. It is -- as is obvious -- a biography of Timur, the Tatar conqueror (1336-1405). Given the size of the empire of conquest, Timur is worth studying, especially given the importance of the region from Pakistan to the Levant which he influenced in today's news.

I saw the film, Mongol, a couple of days ago. It is based on the early life of Genghis Khan (1162-1227), an ancestor of Timur and of course another great conqueror. There were major cultural shifts between Genghis Khan's Mongol Tribes and the Turkik Tatars that Timur led. Still, I think it may be useful to get a visual fix on the Mongol tribes and how and where they lived in undertanding the later life and times of Timur.

Incidentally, the film is great. It was actually filmed in Mongolia, is visually beautiful, and seems to be an effort to modernize a founding myth for the Mongolians. It moves slowly, as I think is appropriate for such an effort. Unfortunately the second and third films of the intended trilogy were never made.

The same day I saw a second film, Nomad: The Warrior. Supposedly this is the most expensive film ever shot in Kazakhstan. It too is seems to be an effort to moderize a founding myth, describing the early life of Ablai Kahn, who consolidated Kazakh tribes to fight successfully against the Dzungars in the early 1700s. I found the film very good in showing what parts of Kazakhstan look like (I have visited Almaty and Astana in modern Kazakhstan). I found the settings of fortifications and towns especially well done, and while the stars of the film were not Kazakhs, many of the supporting players and extras were. For some reason, one critic was unhappy that the film showed the real Kazakhstan, which I thought was one of the great values of the film.

I think fans of action films will enjoy Nomad, while those looking for deeper values of character development and narrative subtlety may be disappointed. As a way of understanding how modern Kazakhstan seeks to understand its own history, the film is well worth watching.

Is this film about Ablai Khan, who came from an area somewhat to the north of the area from which Timur came, and who lived three centuries later than Timur, and which is heavily fictionalized helpful in understanding Timur. Surprisingly, I think it is. At the least it provides images of people and lands of central Asia, and of course Timur led troops over and conquered a huge area.