Johanna d'Arc of Mongolia (1989)

The film initially takes place on the Trans-Siberian Railway, where the four female protagonists meet. The first introduced is Lady Windmere, a London-based, French-speaking private scholar of ethnology who occupies her own lavishly appointed carriage on the train and muses about Siberia through old travel accounts. Next, the German senior teacher Frau Müller-Vohwinkel, from Bad Harzburg, is shown in her compartment, reading aloud to herself from a Baedeker guidebook about the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Fanny Ziegfeld, an American Broadway musical star, is bored by the endless greenery in her sleeping compartment. At the request of Ludmilla, the carriage attendant, who has just brought tea with rum, she sings “In the Green Valley” from her musical “Green Dreams” (an allusion to “In the Valley,” sung by Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls) and, at her request, receives “sweet, high-calorie waffles, Rotfront brand.” The last and youngest protagonist, the silently observant Giovanna, is travelling in third class as a backpacker in search of experiences, alongside Russian and Chinese passengers. While they busy themselves with their travel provisions and the animals travelling with them, she lies lethargically on a luggage rack and listens to a Walkman to shut out the commotion. Her name alludes to the titular Joan of Arc. When she nearly falls off her bunk during an abrupt stop at a small Russian station, Lady Windmere discovers her while on an investigative walk through the train and compares her to a Mongolian princess. Enthralled by Lady Windmere’s learned manner of speaking, Giovanna happily lets herself be taken to the train restaurant. At the station, a four-member Russian women’s band in military uniforms is playing. Also travelling on the train is Mickey Katz, a Yiddish-American musical star, portrayed here as a gluttonous, pleasure-loving, flamboyant bon vivant of great wealth. At the station, he buys a remedy for his ailments from a Chinese shaman. In addition, the Russian officer Alexander Boris Nikolaj Nikolajewitsch Murawjoff and his adjutant Alyosha board the train and enter Fanny Ziegfeld’s compartment. Although he ought to be on a strict diet, Mickey Katz orders a multi-course Russian meal in the train restaurant. His request for a roasted swan in full plumage nearly exceeds the restaurant’s capabilities. Frau Müller-Vohwinkel, by contrast, orders the tourist menu for package travellers, as does Fanny Ziegfeld, using a coupon. Lady Wintermere and Giovanna also enter the restaurant and choose à la carte. After Murawjoff and his adjutant have taken their seats, the three Kalinka Sisters, a Georgian women’s group whose repertoire combines Andrew Sisters songs with Russian folk songs, enter the restaurant and give an impromptu musical performance. Murawjoff rewards them with vodka, then launches into a lengthy, loudly audible account of his distant family history, until his speech is interrupted by the ceremonious arrival of Mickey Katz’s meal. Meanwhile, Fanny Ziegfeld and Frau Müller-Vohwinkel receive their tourist menus, sealed in plastic wrap. However, the food is kosher: because Mickey Katz is on board, the train had prudently stocked up on a large quantity of it. Meanwhile, Lady Wintermere continues to captivate Giovanna with a dramatic account of an ancient Mongolian legend about the miraculous herb Pan-Zui. Mickey Katz listens too and eventually joins the two women. Lady Wintermere finally asks him to give a sample of his singing, but he will do so only if Fanny Ziegfeld also performs. He then sings a medley of “A Yiddish New York Bubele Likes Blintzes In Hester Street,” “Toot, Toot, Tootsie (Goo’ Bye!),” and “Bei mir bistu shein.” Fanny Ziegfeld sings “In the Green Valley” again. Lady Wintermere invites those present to five-o’clock tea in her compartment the following day, and the Kalinka Sisters launch into “Bei mir bistu shein” once more, joined by Ziegfeld, Murawjoff, and Katz. Murawjoff’s adjutant Alyosha, who abandoned his ballet training at the Bolshoi Theatre, performs a tap dance, which draws Mickey Katz’s homoerotic attention. The next morning, Giovanna wakes up in Lady Wintermere’s luxurious compartment, and Lady Wintermere invites her to take a hot bath before breakfast. Alyosha polishes his superior’s medals, while Murawjoff tries to make small talk with Fanny Ziegfeld, who rebuffs him. Meanwhile, Frau Müller-Vohwinkel has arrived in Lady Wintermere’s compartment and listens to her learned lecture on Russian pastry traditions, supplementing it with remarks from the Baedeker about Butter Week. Giovanna finds this too far removed from reality, whereupon Frau Müller-Baedeker explains the dangers of travelling alone to her. Lady Wintermere, however, defends her and stresses, with double meaning, that she had set out precisely to gain experience. Frau Müller-Vohwinkel remarks self-critically that she evidently lacks the pedagogical instinct, at which point Mickey Katz enters the compartment. Murawjoff arrives too, but his adjutant immediately tells him to leave, as they have reached their destination, Kultuk, where Murawjoff is supposed to discipline nomads who have crossed the line. Fanny Ziegfeld arrives last. At Kultuk station, the same four-member women’s band that played at the previous station is performing again, while a Mongolian rider passes in the background. Over tea, the four women discover that they will be travelling on together aboard the Trans-Mongolian Railway. In Ulan-Ude, the four women and the Kalinka Sisters have transferred to the Trans-Mongolian Railway, though this is not shown after an abrupt scene change. On the less luxurious train, Lady Wintermere and Giovanna now share one compartment, while Frau Müller-Vohwinkel and Fanny Ziegfeld have another. When Frau Müller-Vohwinkel catches sight of a camel caravan through the window, the film shifts from the entirely studio-shot perspective of its first third into its main section, characterised by realistic outdoor footage in the style of an ethnographic documentary, albeit about an ancient Mongolian culture that no longer exists—or is partly invented. As in a Western, camel riders armed with bows and arrows appear behind the mountain ridges, along with their leader, Princess Ulun Iga. With a meagre pile of sand, they bring the train to a halt and abduct the four protagonists, along with the Kalinka Sisters, as hostages. After making sacrifices at a sacred tree, the group, with the women, encounters in the green steppe a herd belonging to the rival king of the Kharatsin, consisting of camels, yaks, and horses, with yurts loaded onto wagons. At a bend in a small stream, an emissary of the dying Olgi Sumiya, accompanied by musicians playing the erhu and morin khuur, offers his tribe’s apology. Some time earlier, his tribe had ambushed and robbed a sacrificial procession from Princess Ulun Iga’s tribe that was travelling to a kumbum, but they had seemed to be pursued by misfortune ever since. The erhu player then sings the dying king’s dream, in which the return of the stolen goods is demanded—a restitution he intends to make today. The princess accepts the apology and compensation and sends the sick king a healing belt. The riders take up residence with their hostages in the returned yurts and hold a celebration. The film’s final third shows the hostages’ stay in the yurt village, where they witness various rituals and various cultural misunderstandings occur. At the end of the film, all the Western women are taken back to the Trans-Mongolian Railway. Only Giovanna, who has by then entered into a romantic relationship with Ulun Iga, is left behind, torn between two choices.