Mountain Patrol: Kekexili

Directed by Chuan Lu

Columbia Pictures

5 stars

Stillness and grit pervade Kekexili, the “last virgin wilderness in China,” a freezing, barren wasteland where comradeships are tested and the human spirit dies. “Mountain Patrol: Kekexili” discusses in disturbing yet beautiful terms the human heart’s simultaneous capacities for selfless kindness and selfish evil. In “Kekexili,” no one is innocent, and no one is guilty. Everyone bears responsibility for the destruction of man and nature.

Director Chuan Lu’s touching, forceful film tells of a tightly knit band of civilians who devote their lives to protecting the endangered Tibetan antelope from unscrupulous poachers. Ritai (played with furious gusto by Tibetan actor Duobuji) copes with the murder of one of his men in the only way he knows: he starts hunting the hunters.

With the grace of a master filmmaker, Lu seamlessly folds the story of Ga Yu (Zhang Lei), a wet-behind-the-ears reporter for a Beijing newspaper, into Ritai’s crusade against the poachers, deftly obscuring frontier journalism with frontier revenge. The subtitles that accompany the Mandarin and Tibetan dialogue don’t hamper such dramatic complexity, primarily thanks to Lu’s impeccable direction and the honed precision of every actor’s performance.

As he gains acceptance among Ritai’s band, Ga Yu channels the horror of the poachers’ heartlessness along with the ostensibly righteous cruelty Ritai’s men serve to those that threaten the wilderness they protect. In one especially disquieting scene, the mountain patrol looks out over a vast field of sun-bleached antelope carcasses as a pair of marauding vultures picks them clean of their meat.

During these moments, Lu draws us close to the mountain patrol, sharing in not only their disgust, but also their terror. It’s all the more tragic, then, when Lu argues the poacher’s case with nearly equal force: when Ritai instructs his men to sell some of the confiscated antelope pelts to pay his group’s medical bills, we empathize with the desperation that drives men to compromise their values.

“Kekexili” evokes such a whirlwind of feelings, it’s difficult to tell where anyone’s loyalties lie at the end. Chuan Lu paints this gut-wrenching ambiguity in swaths across the entirety of his film, driving it home like a stake through the heart.

Pity is perhaps the most lasting emotion “Kekexili” imprints upon the viewer: Pity for the women and children who cry as their men depart for the mountains, pity for the terrible price one man’s vendetta wreaks on lasting comradeships, and pity for the total abuse of the men who strive to protect the irrevocably-tainted innocence of this so-called “virgin” wilderness.

“Kekexili” teaches us to appreciate what we have—friendships, nature, certainty of beliefs—but breaks our heart as it takes every one of those comforts away. Tragically, it is when all of these necessary securities disappear, and the mountains fall silent, that Lu’s film has most to say about the price men exact upon nature and each other.

Bottom Line: “Mountain Patrol: Kekexili” is one of the most affecting and forceful films of the last decade that a U.S. audience has had the privilege to experience.