RECOMMENDED
In both fiction and documentary, many filmmakers fall prey to pictorial exoticism in faraway lands, so it’s gratifying when filmmakers find a way into a strange time or place and also discover their own eccentric vocabulary. The magical realist “Khadak,” set in Mongolia, and made by the Belgian-based documentary team of Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, is about a young man’s resistance to assuming his destiny as a shaman: with beautiful cinematography and a gorgeous score reminiscent of Michael Nyman’s work, Brosens and Woodworth allow the story to shift from country to city with increasingly peculiar but engaging results. I’d love to describe the movie at length, but its riches are there to be discovered, admired and often loved. The opening medium close-up, of a young Mongolian woman against a colorful backdrop, cheeks streaked with black dust, counting numbers into the camera as she slowly begins to tear up, is a mere augury of terrific filmmaking to follow. 106m. (Ray Pride)
Reviews, profiles and news about movies in Chicago
