elusiveworld

We take our seats behind old wooden desks in a classroom decorated with black and white stills of movie greats, directors and writers. In a quirky Mongolian way it felt familiar, like being in an old grammar school in England.

The wise old professor seated before us, removes his heavy duty, outdoor spectacles which he substitutes with a pair of sophisticated, gold rimmed ones. With one eye squinting behind the bent left lens, he begins his discourse on remote filming technique. Speaking in a gravelly voice, with a gleam in his one open eye, and a gold wedding ring deeply-embedded on the knuckle of a superstitiously crossed finger, he informs us of what to expect when working with the Tsataan Reindeer herders.

After giving us his time-honoured points of view he once again changes spectacles, placing the thick framed pair on his nose, above a well-groomed moustache. Standing a little over five feet tall, he leaves the classroom dressed in a black shirt, plaid sports jacket and striped tie. Great affection is shown towards him by his female students.

Aside from the aesthetic wonders of this lesson, we leave the professor with little to help us in terms of film technique. He has instilled in the idea that we must buy a car and lighting equipment.

We walk down the back of the dilapidated film school and down an alley between the crude rustic fencing of  semi-permanent ger camps. A husky dog rolls out his tongue and yawns. We pass a large animal skull of some kind, then a line of heavy duty steal doors, designed to keep out harsh weather. A poor little kid passes us, his head bandaged up, a small hand in his mother’s. They have tough faces, but a gleam in the eye.

In contrast to the professional techniques and caution advised by the other professor, our meeting with the second professor highlighted a far more down-to-earth, rough and ready approach to film making. He suggests that we use only natural light.

As the light of day fades to dusk, we eye a map spread out on the table in front of  the tenement block where he lives. The professor wears black horn-rimmed spectacles – the kind that have stretchy rubber to hold them behind the ears – below a head of fine swept back hair. In a corner seat and with his arms spread out on the veranda he exclaims enigmatically ‘you can find the shaman!’

The next day I visit a Siberian Shamanistic costume exhibition at the National Museum. There are many pagan amulets and intimidating costumes of steel and bone objects hanging from deer-skin cloaks. Strange head pieces adorned with animal faces and feathers and voodoo-like dolls. Very primal and supernatural, fascinating, yet at the same time ominous.

We are later to encounter ‘Ghost’, the most revered shaman in the taiga (forest) of Khovsgul, where we hear tales of footprints the colour of blood in snow and howling devil birds.