One
thousand years ago, give or take, Russian Slavs had largely displaced the Scythian
nomads of Iranian-Assyrian descent along the Eurasian Steppe. The Russian warlords
had ambitions of conquering Kiev, so yeah, not much has changed in all this
time. However, the stout-hearted Lutobor has more pressing problems than empire
building. He must rescue his wife and daughter from a band of assassins known
as the “Wolves of Ares” in Rustam Mosafir’s The
Scythian (trailer
here),
which screens during the 2018 Fantasia International Film Festival.
The
Scythians’ days are numbered, but they are not going down without a fight. Making
a bold play, they kidnap Lutobor’s family, demanding he assassinate the prince
in exchange for their safe return. Lutobor remains loyal, but the Prince’s
hatches a scheme to feign his slow death from poison to smoke out the
conspirators. Unfortunately, his trusted lieutenant will have to become a fugitive
from feudal judgement. His only ally will be Marten, a Scythian warrior
betrayed by his own comrades during the raid on Lutobor’s compound.
If
you have been craving hack-and-slash action, there is plenty in The Scythian. It is also loaded to the
gills with weird pagan imagery. On the other hand, the logic is a little light.
It never makes much sense that Marten would so immediately and decisively align
himself with Lutobor, but so be it. Don’t bother looking for strong women
characters here either, because it is a product of its environment.
As
for the guys, there are a lot of them, but only three or four really register.
Aleksey Faddev has the brawn and action chops for Lutobor, but Aleksandr
Kuznetsov is a much stronger screen-presence as the mongoose-like Marten.
It
is hard to miss the significance of the Christian proto-Slavs mastering the
wild steppe. Even more fundamentally, that this Russian production would opt to
identify with the pillaging hordes is even more telling—whereas in the West, our
sword & sandal flicks usually feature heroes of Greek or Roman civilization,
instead of rampaging Vandals. Granted, the ending somewhat deconstructs its own
heroic Slavic mythmaking, but that probably just left its target domestic
audience confused.
So,
mind your steppe everybody. Frankly, The Scythian
is such an oddball train wreck of symbolism it really is worth seeing. More
importantly for most well-adjusted viewers, the fight scenes are definitely staged
with gusto. This is a film that would make MSNBC’s talking heads wet their
pants, because it combines rampant unchecked testosterone with barbaric Robert
Spencer-alt right hair-styles. Recommended for Donald Trump and the curious, The Scythian screens again on Thursday
(7/19), as part of this year’s Fantasia.
