Four arduous years in the making, Ardak Amirkulov’s historical epic about the intrigue and turmoil preceding Genghis Khan’s systematic destruction of the lost East Asian civilization of Otrar is a one-of-a-kind experience. Amirkulov’s film, shot in sepia-toned black-and-white, is at once hallucinatory, visually resplendent, and ferociously energetic, packed with eye-catching (and eye-gouging) detail and B movie fervor, and traversing an endless variety of parched, epic landscapes and ornate palaces. But The Fall of Otrar is also an astute historical film, and its high quotient of torture and gore is always grounded in the bedrock of realpolitik.