Film/ Johanna d'Arc of Mongolia

Director Ulrike Ottinger slowly pares and burnishes this boisterous fantasy into a small jewel of radiant perfection. "Johanaa d'Arc of Mongolia" opens like a bygone era children's storybook. Paper-thin and somewhat tattered painted stage drops merely pretend to evoke the once-opulent interiors of the Trans-Siberian Railway and the vibrant world outside.

A troop of rambling polyglot charmers jostles amiably in this crowded and mobile house of cards: an uncomplicated and affable Broadway chanteuse; a Baedeker-immersed bourgeois German frau; an exotically dark and beautiful, young tomboyish vagabond; a rich, fat, gay, crooning vaudevillian; an amusingly pompous Russian general and his handsome, straight-faced tap-dancing adjutant.

A sister trio cabaret act entertains in the Dining Car where a small coterie of trolls and ingenious helpers create operatic splendor in this thin environment. Magisterially overseeing both characters and tale, the elegant Lady Windermere (Delphine Seyrig, in her last film role) is a modern-day sorceress and know-it-all MC, unrelentingly cheerful and resourceful.

All too quickly this world of "players and painted stage" attains its limit and the party breaks up, the men shuffling off to repeat performances of well-known roles in familiar locales. Only the women will venture further east. Suddenly the diorama of Act I gives way to a real, dimensional world as they transfer to the Trans-Mongolian Railway, whose accommodations are more substantial if decidedly less luxurious.

A vast panorama of dry mountains and cloudless sky begins to emerge when the train is forced to a halt, ambushed by a Mongolian princess and her Amazonian warriors. The travellers are taken hostage, though the circumstances quickly change, altering their status to that of honored quests.

The opportunity immediately appeals to all except the uncertain frau who must choose between this uncharted experience on the Steppe and a difficult retreat to her urban obligations and hotel reservations. She decides, however, to stay, initiating an astonishing vision of timeless tribal life. The realm of the warrior princess is ritualized in every aspect- even the smallest actions are imbued with meaning and significance, direct lines of access to an ever-present transcendent.

Restless in a tame world, the exotic vagabond seems to find a natural place in this rough and vital community. The sister trio and Broadway star, artists and shape-shifters accustomed always to making their own way in any surroundings, adjust quite easily to this very out-of-town run. Lady Windermere perfects her Mongolian, interprets the archetypal signs and symbols, witnessing and cataloging the spectacular variety of creation and customs as she mediates the two cultures.

The harsh clash of sensibilities falls squarely on the frau when she unknowingly hangs out her laundry to dry and is nearly attacked by the Mongolians who believe the exposed wet clothes will bring threatening storms. She survives this ordeal and in giving up the modest propriety of bourgeois habit opens the way for a different journey. Ambling on the grassy plateau at the edge of a ravine she becomes spellbound with the resonant mandala of a simple white flower and descends a deep cavernous path that erupts into a colorful, shimmering grotto- a benevolent shaman at its potent magnetic core.

Above ground the annual festival of the Mongol tribes unfolds as a vast and varied living artwork- rapturously beautiful, unexpected and dichotomous, reconstructing the object of its inspiration, life itself.

A cycle fulfilled, the festival, season and story come to a conclusion. The women are escorted across the desert to the train that will take them out of this magical realm, back into a sense of time that can only go violently and mono-dimensionally forward. The vagabond has chosen to remain. Astride her pony, costumed in silky vest and fur-trimmed hat, she blends seamlessly into the Mongol tribe, waving her former comrades farewell.

With the reliability and exactitude of a metronome Lady Windermere divines and dictates foible and fact as she sips tea from a lidded cup, ensconced in the Salon Car of her oriental counterpart- a contemporary avatar of the warrior princess, stylishly dressed for the business world of Paris. One last glance back reveals a single horse and rider galloping frantically toward the lumbering train and, with flawless precision, the vagabond leaps into the waiting arms of the knowing Lady. Like the frau she, too, has surrendered to a freeing vision: that it is more important that the dream rings true. She makes the best of it, becoming the manager of a Mongolian-themed restaurant.

Ottinger, who also wrote and filmed "Johanna d'Arc of Mongolia", fashions a creation hard to describe: tender and joyful, funny and knowing, unafraid of darkness, always inclusive. What looks at first like a kaleidoscopic patchwork of infinite detail- from an impossibly heartfelt and campy performance of "So Long Tootsie, Goodbye" to a matter-of-fact on-screen, real-time ritual animal sacrifice in broad and glorious daylight- is more synthesis than collage. Through the prism of Ottinger's unique sensibility the spectrum of discrete elements composing her story co-mingle into a bright and singular vision.