1 of 2

The Story of the Weeping Camel Our rating: Your rating:   MPAA rating: PG (for mild thematic content) Theater release: June 18, 2004 by ThinkFilm Directed by: Byambasuren Davaa, Luigi Falorini Runtime: 1 hour 33 minutes Cast: Janchiv Ayurzana (Janchiv), Chimed Ohin (Chimed), Amgaabazar Gonson (Amgaa), Zeveljamz Nyam (Zevel), Odgerel Ayusch (Odgoo), Ikhbayar Amgaabazar (Ikchee) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Take a mother camel with a heartbreaking case of post-partum depression. Add—slowly—her wobbly rejected newborn, and a family of resilient shepherds who will go to great lengths to make the mother accept her child. Set them all in Mongolia's arid Gobi desert where a TV set costs, oh, maybe 20 to 30 sheep, and the splendorous sight of sun setting over the brushed horizon seems to stop time. Let the camera linger, as does every minute of life in this far-off land. If it's a true story—better yet, one caught as it unravels—you've got yourself a visual oasis that will rest eyes wearied of choosing in the land of plenty.

Will mother and child ultimately end up together?

This is the fine idea of Mongolian-raised filmmaker Byambasuren Davaa, inspired by a drama she saw as a girl, one that depicted an old Mongolian legend in which nomadic herders reunite a mother camel and a baby she'd rejected. Some legends are true, of course. Knowing that the story—according to which an ancient musical ritual can undo a mother camel's rejection of her colt—is based in reality, Davaa partnered with Luigi Falorni to direct the old fable playing out in real life. For their seemingly natural and simple cinematography, the two credit as their teacher the vanguard documentary maker Robert Flaherty (Man of Aran, Nanook of the North).

At the time when camels are having their young ones and nothing but a sand storm interrupts the herders' watchful care over them, the filmmakers took their crew to the Gobi desert. Fortunately, they found what they were looking for: one red-coated dromedary, after going through a harrowing two-day labor, was so worn out she wanted nothing to do with a rare white colt that finally made his way out of her womb. The cameras capture the heartrending attempts that the colt (named Botok) makes at getting a drink of his mother's milk. But snuggling up to his mommy's belly is out of the question.

The weakling's endeavors to catch up with Mom after she leaves him in the dust in spite of his moans of disappointment contrast with scenes of tenderness between the human mother and her children. Craving parental care is a good instinct God gave to both animals and people. Those who have experienced abandonment by a parent will instantly feel a bond with the unwanted colt. But this quirky docudrama speaks a more universal language: Who does not feel for a child abandoned by his mother?

One of many cameo, er, camel appearances in this film

The herders certainly do. In scenes that are partly a documentation of the unscripted young camel's drama and partly re-enacted true-to-life situations, a hard-working, yurt-dwelling family of nomads playing themselves come to Botok's defense. Young Odgoo (Odgerel Ayusch) and her husband, Ikchee (Ikhbayar Amgaabazar), send their two young sons on camels to the nearest village (about 30 miles away) to ask a violinist to accompany the animal mother and son into harmony.

As the two boys gallop away on camelback, leaving behind three generations of their ancestors in the tents they set up in the middle of nowhere, we witness the way globalization is inching its way even to the remote Mongolian settlement. The curiosity of the youngest boy, Ugna, guides the camera into a hut where children sit hypnotized in front of a TV with, incidentally, a cartoon that any child who grew up under Communism will recognize as the Russian Wolf and Hare, the saga of the stupid wolf and the hapless but fast hare. Later, the boy will ask his family for a TV set, and even though the grandpa will echo many American grandpas in saying that watching glass images is no good, his heart will be as soft toward his grandson as those of good grandfathers everywhere.

The satellite dishes, the motorcycles, the adidas hat Ugna wears on his trip, and even the batteries that the boys buy at the village store signal the unavoidable infringement of civilization on a lifestyle of simplicity and what we in the West view as inconvenience. But so far the modern inventions haven't overtaken the cultural treasures of ritual and community.

next page... |  1 of 2 | last page