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Mankurt Movie Review

Mankurt is a 1990 Soviet Turkmen drama film directed by Hojakuli Narliyev and starring Maya Aimedova. It is a powerful movie that is also absolutely heartbreaking in its final moments.

The film is about a Turkmenian who defends his homeland from invasion. He is captured, tortured and brainwashed into serving his homeland’s conquerors. He is so completely turned that he kills his mother when she attempts to rescue him from captivity. First and foremost, I find it just ridiculous that the premise that they’ve written for this movie spoils the very end of it. Who does that?! This was beyond stupid and it blunted somewhat the impact of the film for me.

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Still, the story remains quite tragic and emotionally exhilarating to watch. Dealing with torture and brainwashing, it doesn’t have the lightest of themes, but it treats these dark themes with utter respect and care for its characters and the overall people of this country. I did not know a lot about Turkmenistan before seeing the film, but now I realize that their national identity is highly valued for them, given that they’ve struggled to maintain it throughout centuries.

My biggest gripe with the movie is the director’s failure to properly deal with the invaders. Not only do we now get to learn a lot about them, but the overall story fails to truly delve deeply into the Turkmen history and why this story is particularly important in the historical context.

But otherwise, Hojakuli Narliyev did a tremendous job directing this feature. Mankurt not only is very well put together, but also stylistically strong and memorable. I give it a lot of praise because watching the poor-quality version on YouTube, I still got to appreciate its artistry as the cinematography is excellent and the score is also quite evocative.

Mankurt is of course at its most powerful in that final scene where the mother dies. I found their relationship superbly realized and not a single character besides these two could rival their strength. The mother’s bravery and love for her son were admirable, which made her death even more touching.

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Mankurt doesn’t deal so much with the historical aspects behind its story, but it does portray effectively a mother’s love for her son, which made the ending even more touching. Dealing with dark themes involving torture and brainwashing, this is not an easy watch, but it’s still very moving and so well made across the board with the directing and acting being particularly worthy of praise.

My Rating – 4