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TUYA’S MARRIAGE
Edited & Directed by Wang Quan An
Produced by Yan Ju Gang
Written by Wang & Lu Wei
Director of Photography, Lutz Reitemeier
Released by Music Box Films
Mandarin with English subtitles
China. 92 min. Not Rated
With Yu Nan, Bater, Baolier, Senge & Zhaya

It used to be that mothers warned kids to eat up because children were starving in China. With Tuya’s Marriage, the kids can retort, don’t complain about how tired you are Mom – you could have it as tough as Tuya.

Tuya (Yu Nan, beautiful and charismatic even when enveloped in scarves and jackets) is facing as many challenges to her household as China’s Inner Mongolia is facing with development. She has to schlep over 15 miles to load up water jugs on a camel and horse. Her older husband, Bater, hurt himself trying to dig the shallow well further and is now permanently disabled. He can at least provide some child care for their toddler daughter, but she also has to keep an eye on their young son, who manfully tries to help her shepherd their flock through drought and snow and away from wolves.

Despite her harangues of frustration at having to support his relatives as well, she’s still affectionate toward her husband, and has to fend off the amorous attentions of her handsome neighbor Senge, who gets drunk each time his wife runs off with another man. Tuya bails him out again and again from vehicle crashes of various types, injuring her back in one instance. No wonder her even more hard-pressed sister-in-law recommends hard drinking as a solution for her problems.

The film recalls the unusual triangle from co-writer Lu Wei’s Farewell My Concubine: she’ll divorce but the new husband has to agree to support Bater. As word spreads like wildfire across the steppes that her divorce papers are signed, braggart suitors show up, each personifying different aspects of Inner Mongolia’s changing society. They’re accompanied by friends or relatives pleading their case, even as it’s clear why each man hasn’t been able to attract or keep a wife.

Tuya’s availability reaches the prodigal Baolier, who returns to the region after striking it rich in the oil business. He nostalgically remembers his crush on her back in school, and offers financial support for Bater and the children, but at a devastating emotional cost for the entire family that may be more than even the stoic and determined Tuya can accept. Senge literally tries to ride to her rescue on a white steed, galloping from the barren grassland onto dirt roads and then a paved highway, following the electric wires to the big city. (All the male roles are played by non-professional actors with the same single names as the characters they portray. Senge, by the way, is an accomplished equestrian).

There’s even more twists, what with that waning well, Senge’s straying wife, and family guilt. Leavened by love, Tuya’s Job-like vicissitudes give this film a stronger story than several recent films from neighboring, independent Mongolia. Despite her backbreaking hardships, she lives in more settled conditions than the nomads in the docudramas of Byambasuren Davaa (The Story of the Weeping Camel). Tuya’s family retains the emblematic round ger only for the disappearing rituals of hospitality; otherwise, they live in an attached cabin. Though occasionally amusing and fanciful, these poignant characters are more grounded about the personal consequences of the loss of community than the political magic realism of Khadak that was made by European filmmakers. Inspired to capture the ebbing traditions of his mother’s heritage in Inner Mongolia before they are all gone, director Wang Quan An pays touching tribute to a strong woman who finally has no choice but to cry. Nora Lee Mandel
April 4, 2008