{"id":10465,"date":"2018-08-23T15:20:30","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T19:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=10465"},"modified":"2018-08-23T16:17:09","modified_gmt":"2018-08-23T20:17:09","slug":"bears-wolves-and-eagles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=10465","title":{"rendered":"Bears, Wolves and Eagles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Marten-Sol.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-10467\" src=\"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Marten-Sol.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Marten-Sol.jpg 537w, https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Marten-Sol-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Marten-Sol-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>I recently saw two ultra-violent historical fantasies in close succession. One was <em>The Eagle<\/em> (2011) based on Rosemary Sutcliff\u2019s novel <em>The Eagle of the Ninth<\/em>. It\u2019s generally considered a bookend to the vastly superior <em>Centurion<\/em> (2010) but the pairing is inaccurate \u2013 their sole similarity is their focus on the \u201cvanished\u201d Legio IX Hispana. The other was Rustam Mosafir\u2019s <em>Scyth<\/em> (2018 \u2013 the English title is <em>The Last Warrior<\/em>), which at first glance could be thought as the mirror twin of <em>The Eagle<\/em>. But whereas <em>The Eagle<\/em> is a self-satisfied by-the-numbers bromance, <em>Scyth<\/em> hums a whisper that becomes a scream by the film\u2019s end. To those who haven\u2019t seen these films, keep in mind that the discussion which follows contains <strong>terminal spoilers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>On the surface, <em>Eagle<\/em> and <em>Scyth<\/em> are indeed near-identical. Both films:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Are awash in graphic gore and kyriarchal machismo \u2013 honor and revenge, blood oaths and ritual scarrings, alpha circling and measuring of belt lengths; there are no women characters (the protagonist\u2019s wife in <em>Scyth<\/em> is essentially a plot lever, though he\u2019s shown to truly love her; <em>Eagle<\/em> has thankfully decided to omit women altogether, in contrast to <em>Centurion<\/em> that showcases powerful women even as it hews to traditional good\/evil dichotomies).<\/li>\n<li>Boast stunning scenery (the Scottish Highlands for <em>Eagle<\/em>, the Crimea for <em>Scyth<\/em>) and haunting incidental music: celebrated Allan McDonald <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=weBXAJ4SkGY\">chants canntaireachd<\/a> (the verbal notation for bagpipe tunes) in <em>The Eagle<\/em>, while <em>Scyth<\/em> contains a synthed-up version of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BzfHDwRlVXc\">Dle Yaman<\/a>\u201d (\u201cPlaint\u201d), a traditional Armenian lament played on the duduk.<\/li>\n<li>Unapologetically use multiple languages that require (horrors!) subtitles \u2013 something also utilized to tremendous effect in Brendan Muldowney\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=10275\">ferocious <em>Pilgrimage<\/em><\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Depict liminal places and eras, though they barely feint towards historical accuracy: northern Britain just before the Roman withdrawal (a nexus that gave rise to the Arthurian mythos); the Black Sea area when the barely-christianized Varangian warrior elites were fighting the pagan Kipchaks and Cumans (aka Polovtsians) to establish the Kievan Rus\u2019 Federation.<\/li>\n<li>Have chosen to depict the native adversaries of the expansionist powers as m\u00e9langes of American Great Plains peoples with soup\u00e7ons of classical Sparta \u2013 though there\u2019s a fascinating wrinkle in <em>Scyth<\/em> that we\u2019ll explore later.<\/li>\n<li>Show loyal retainers used as pawns and scapegoats by ruthless, power-hungry liege lords (not surprisingly, the Rus\u2019 strongman in <em>Scyth<\/em> exhibits attributes of Ivan Grozny and Stalin \u2013 and of his likely inspiration and namesake, Oleg of Novgorod).<\/li>\n<li>Adhere to the well-worn Thor\/Loki trope of the sturdy, rule-abiding mesomorph and the wily, mercurial endomorph bonding reluctantly to achieve overlapping goals despite fundamental differences and inherited enmities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>[Parenthesis 1: A major reason that keeps <em>The Eagle<\/em> from, well, soaring is that Channing Tatum \u2013 not even a wooden plank, more like termite-chewed veneer \u2013 was chosen for the anchoring mesomorph slot of Marcus Flavius Aquila, whereas Aleksei Faddeyev (Lyutabor, the <em>Scyth<\/em> counterpart) manages to look engaged and even shows flashes of sardonic wit. As is the norm, the endomorphic tricksters steal the show effortlessly. Jamie Bell (Esca, Marcus\u2019 Briganti slave scout) is a well-known chameleon who was equally stellar as St. John Rivers in Fukunaga\u2019s atmospheric <em>Jane Eyre<\/em> and as Peter Turner in <em>Film Stars Don\u2019t Die in Liverpool<\/em>. The real eye-opener, however, is Aleksandr Kuznetsov as Marten of the Wolves of Perun, a quintessence of demonic charisma. You hang on his every deed and word even when he\u2019s doing dreadful stuff, and it doesn\u2019t hurt that his moves are closely modeled on Brad Pitt\u2019s Achilles fight choreography in <em>Troy<\/em> (the sole inspired aspect of that film) or that he rarely raises his voice.]<\/p>\n<p>So far, so standard. But <em>Scyth<\/em>, unusually for a film of its type, actually has a quasi-coherent plot \u2013 plus a few crinkles that make you wonder what a remarkable film it could have been if Mosafir had dialed back the gore and made the unique echoes more central to the tale.<\/p>\n<p>A telling early sign is how the two films portray the local cultures. <em>The Eagle<\/em> is beyond perfunctory in its depiction of the Caledonian groups that Marcus and Esca encounter. The most prolonged interaction presents a Highlands society as a homogenized goo of the Clay People in <em>Quest for Fire<\/em>, the Spartans in <em>300<\/em> and the Iroquois in <em>Black Robe<\/em> \u2013 and totally wastes Tahar Rahim, who was a magnetic presence in <em>Un Proph\u00e8te<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Scythians-Kerch.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-10478\" src=\"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Scythians-Kerch-300x227.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"265\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Scythians-Kerch-300x227.jpg 300w, https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Scythians-Kerch.jpg 610w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 265px) 100vw, 265px\" \/><\/a>In contrast, <em>Scyth<\/em> shows several distinct cultures just sufficiently to evoke a sense of the complexity of that region and era. It\u2019s true that a pivotal scene is straight out of <em>Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome<\/em>, and Mosafir mostly opts for the smorgasbord shorthand that denotes \u201cbarbarism\u201d in such films. Yet the artifacts and rituals do have a semblance of specificity: sinuously-shaped gold was an integral feature of Scythian metalsmithing; equally sinuous tattoos were common in many Eurasian steppe cultures (of which more anon); shamanism is shown as a matter-of-fact backdrop; and there\u2019s a throwaway scene \u2013 you\u2019ll miss it if you blink\u00a0\u2013 in which you hear what apparently was a major dilemma for the Rus\u2019 and Khazars when they were debating which monotheistic religion to adopt.<\/p>\n<p>[Parenthesis 2: Given that religion was a major engine in the creation of the Kievan Federation, it\u2019s odd that there are no priests in the christianized Rus\u2019 enclave. An equally glaring omission is the total absence of Byzantium\u00a0\u2013 a major power player at that time and place, the source of Kievan Christianity and the Cyrillic alphabet \u2013 and the millennia-long Crimean\/Black Sea Greek presence. The sole hint of Greek connections is that the Wolves of Perun call on Ares as their patron deity (though this contradicts their moniker: Perun was the Slavic equivalent of Zeus). But the director\u2019s names suggest that his ancestors would have deemed Byzantium and Greece perpetual adversaries. Rustam, after all, is the preeminent paladin in pre-Islamic Parthian\/Iranian sagas and Mosafir is the Persian word for traveler.]<\/p>\n<p>So we come to the scream that sets <em>Scyth<\/em> apart. Lyutabor eventually meets the \u201cScythians\u201d who are shown as the deracinated, beleaguered remnant of a once-proud if harsh culture, its warriors (the Wolves) reduced to banditry and ransom kidnappings for survival. The real Scythians were fearsome masters of mounted warfare who established (and for a while controlled) the Silk Road and left behind kurgan burials with magnificent \u2013 as well as gruesome \u2013 offerings. Mosafir once again resorts to shorthand by using \u201cScythian\u201d to denote a group that inhabits land coveted by empire-building newcomers \u2013 a story as familiar to Russia (in both its tsarist and Soviet incarnations) as to the US and the Roman, Ottoman and Inca empires. But though the band are called Scythians, the visuals tell a different story: the Wolves\u2019 attires borrow elements from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=8536\">the Byzantine Akr\u00edtai<\/a> and the Scythian\/Sarmatian cataphracts, but the band members\u2019 hair colors, tattoos and accoutrements identify them as Tocharians. They, too, were a power along the Silk Road, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=3950\">Celts who left a fascinating record of cultural dispersal<\/a> in the mummies of \u00dcr\u00fcmchi and on the cave frescoes and scrolls of the Tarim Basin.<\/p>\n<p>After Marten gets killed in his attempt to become the Wolves\u2019 leader (deflating the film considerably by his departure), Lyutabor gains the position and convinces the band\u2019s formidable Elder that they\u2019ll be safe under his liege-lord\u2019s protection. When he leads them to Prince Oleg in na\u00efve good faith, the latter calmly orders them all massacred \u2013 a reenactment of Wounded Knee with hails of arrows instead of Hotchkiss machine guns. This lengthy coda is where <em>Scyth<\/em> for the first and only time shows everyday familial love (beyond Lyutabor momentarily dandling his firstborn), crowned by a felled young husband reaching for his dying wife\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n<p>One could argue that this betrayal, the final of many, is required to propel Lyutabor into the defiant act of honor that will almost certainly result in his meeting Marten soon thereafter (the Russians are as sentimental as the Americans, but prefer downbeat endings to their epics except when Teuton knights of any era are involved). Nevertheless, the <em>Scyth<\/em> coda leaves a radically different aftertaste than <em>The Eagle<\/em>, where the two buddies saunter off bantering after they\u2019ve cleared Marcus\u2019 family name by delivering the legion\u2019s recovered eagle standard to his superiors. The DVD contains a less-annoying alternative ending, in which Marcus leaves the standard on the pyre of the legion deserters who had made a life among the Celts and died protecting him.<\/p>\n<p>Lyutabor\u2019s berserker rage and Marten\u2019s balletic fighting are customary action fare, if a notch better than the usual; their reluctant alliance, though unusually nuanced, is still standard-issue male bonding. However, in that final coda <em>Scyth<\/em> departs from sword-and-sandal territory and veers into (granted, brief) social critique. With little ado, it weighs the scales against high-flown notions of honor (and certainly against empire-building, which routinely co-opts honor to serve its ends) in favor of human-scale interactions. This goes against the grain of a genre that always glorifies individual heroism, never the ceaseless weaving that creates a society\u2019s tapestry. And that makes <em>Scyth<\/em> subversive despite itself.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Tocharian-Duo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-10473\" src=\"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Tocharian-Duo-1024x623.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"274\" srcset=\"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Tocharian-Duo-1024x623.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Tocharian-Duo-300x183.jpg 300w, https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Tocharian-Duo-768x467.jpg 768w, https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Tocharian-Duo.jpg 1290w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Images:<\/strong> 1st, Aleksandr Kuznetsov as Marten; 2nd, Scythian archers, gold, from Kerch (ancient\u00a0Panticapeum), Crimea, ~400 BCE; 3rd, two members of the \u201cScythian\u201d band<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related Articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=43\">Iskander, Khan Tengri<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=682\">The Hyacinth among the Roses: The Minoan Civilization<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=2128\">The Andreadis Unibrow Theory of Art<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=3950\">The House of Many Doors<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=5367\">Skin Deep<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=8536\">Hidden Histories<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=9369\">If I Forget Thee, O My Grandmother\u2019s Lost Home<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=9577\">Mad Max: Feral Kids and Chosen Families<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.starshipreckless.com\/blog\/?p=10275\">The Poison Tree<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently saw two ultra-violent historical fantasies in close succession. One was The Eagle (2011) based on Rosemary Sutcliff\u2019s novel The Eagle of the Ninth. It\u2019s generally considered a bookend to the vastly superior Centurion (2010) but the pairing is inaccurate \u2013 their sole similarity is their focus on the \u201cvanished\u201d Legio IX Hispana. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12,13],"tags":[184,174,182,181,180,178,179,177,176,175,183],"class_list":["post-10465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biology-and-culture","category-history","category-science-fiction","tag-cinema","tag-crimea","tag-empire-building","tag-genocide","tag-honor","tag-kievan-rus","tag-male-bonding","tag-roman-empire","tag-scotland","tag-scyths","tag-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}