26/11/2024 - Mongolian filmmaker Janchivdorj Sengedorj depicts a hypnotic, spiritual journey undertaken by a fallen angel, unfurling a crime epic by means of a parable

Perusing the filmography of Janchivdorj Sengedorj, whose 13th feature, Silent City Driver, emerged as the big winner of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival – scooping the Grand Prix for Best Film in the Official Selection Competition and the Best Production Design Award to boot (see the news) – one realises that, since the beginning of his career, the director has been drawn to the plight of the “humiliated and insulted”, to borrow the title of Dostoyevsky’s poignant novel. From his debut, Oxygen (2010), about a bright intellectual turned alcoholic and nomad, to his penultimate film, The Sales Girl (2021), tracing the emotional corruption of a student in the big city, Sengedorj's characters are often gentle souls swept away by the tsunami of a cruel world. Put this way, it all seems to risk veering into cliché, but the fashion in which Sengedorj intertwines the real with the magical, banal evil with sublime spirituality, elevates his work to cinematic tales of the highest register – such as the masterpiece that Silent City Driver truly is.

The surreal opening scene, where a man boards a bus and a camel takes his place at the bus stop, seems to warn us that everything in this film has one foot in reality and the other in the vast inner world of its main character. The man in question is the tall, handsome and profoundly sorrowful Myagmar (a spellbinding performance by professional dancer Amartuvshin Tuvshinbayar), who begins his on-screen wanderings from this stop, roaming the streets of Ulaanbaatar in search of solace for his restless soul.

We are given time and space to observe Myagmar’s solitary reflections – as he squints at the world with a cigarette in his hand – before learning that he spent his youth in prison for involuntary manslaughter in a car accident. After 14 years behind bars, the most decent job he can find is as a hearse driver at a funeral agency. His loneliness (he only shares a few moments with faithful street dogs) is interrupted by his connection with a blind carpenter who crafts coffins, the carpenter’s daughter Saruul (portrayed by fragile-looking professional model Narantuya), who secretly prostitutes herself at night, and a young Buddhist monk with whom Myagmar discusses existential questions surrounding death. A repentant sinner, Myagmar obsessively follows Saruul around to uncover the origins of her sins, only to eventually find out that she is, of course, a victim of a mafia scheme. Meanwhile, his horrific past sporadically returns like a boomerang, a leitmotif underscored by Serge Gainsbourg’s “Comme un boomerang” as the recurring musical theme. It’s a reservoir of demonic energy that he ultimately transforms into a drive for the noble restoration of justice and a withdrawal from a world that has already caused so much pain.

Insightful glances and brooding contemplations, suppressed emotions and radical actions – these are all organically brought to life in widescreen shots, which, along with the incandescent soundtrack, give this small, private tragedy an epic flavour. The Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, as the setting, feels nostalgically cozy in the daytime shots, revealing traces of traditional life, and alienatingly cold in the neon-lit nights, all captured with nuance by DoP Enkhbayar Enkhtur. The finale is both devastating and peaceful – reminiscent of a deeply tragic Russian novel, which the plot evokes, and reflective of the meditative Buddhist philosophy that permeates the film from beginning to end. Eventually, one becomes immersed to the point of catharsis, thanks to the cinematic mastery that leaves the viewer wanting more, even after 137 minutes.

Silent City Driver was co-produced by Mongolia’s MFIA, Dominion Tech LLC, Nomadia Pictures and Ddish.