I bought this Dvd after watching – and liking – the directors other film “The Story of the Weeping Camel“.
It’s as nice as that film. Maybe even nicer. A nice slice of Mongolian life living in a yurt.
With cute kids. Sweet, fresh, rosy-cheeked cuteness. And their gentle childlike life with mom in and around the yurt; as she makes yak cheese and quietly sews; patiently nurturing, tenderly tendering the sweetening life around her.
Dad is off to market on his motorbike to sell the fleeces he’s stripped.
He doesn’t want that dog around when he gets back because he thinks it might be running with wolves. But look at it! It’s even cuter than the kids. It’s more like a cuddly pet than a wild animal. It won’t be ripping up goats and yaks – it’ll be licking them to death!
So the dog doesn’t have any wolf cred. And there’s a bit of contrived dramatic tension at the end involving a lost toddler, baddie vultures – and hero dog running to the rescue; that didn’t have much credibility either.
The director is claiming to have found the story within the family themselves; they aren’t actors, they’re being who they are, as they would do – she’s not getting them to do anything “extra”, not manipulating “more” out of them.
I don’t quite buy that. It seems authentically given – but nice dog, nasty vultures, cute kids, lullaby loving mom -all seemed slightly too twee to be totally true.
But ok, true enough. I don’t want to be too doubting.
Cus scepticism would sour the sweet spirit that the film has so conscientiously portrayed.
Dir: Byambasuren Davaa, Mongolia
7.5/10
