A nomadic family in Mongolia's Gobi desert faces a problem when a white camel colt is born in a difficult delivery and the mother rejects it. Repeated efforts by the extended family to get the mother to nurse the colt fail. The colt stands alone and cries for its mother. The family worries that the colt will not survive. Finally, Dude (Enkhbulgan Ikhbayar), the older boy, is sent to a nearby town to find a musician who can perform a "Hoos" ceremony. Little Ugna (Uuganbaatar Ikhbayar) begs to go along. The two boys travel for miles across the desert, stopping at a neighbor's yert, where Ugna is delighted by his first encounter with television. They travel on to the village, and then return home with word that a musician is on the way. A musical ceremony is performed in an effort to get the mother camel to accept her colt. The Story of the Weeping Camel is a blend of documentary footage and narrative. Filmmakers Luigi Falorni and Byambasuren Davaa cast a real nomad family of herders and shot many of the events in the film as they occurred. The Story of the Weeping Camel was selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art for inclusion in the 2004 edition of New Directors/New Films. It also won the 2003 European Film Award for Best Documentary. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
liked it.
One might be inclined to dismiss The Story of the Weeping Camel as a National Geographic-style exercise in routine ethnography, but that would be a tragic mistake. In fact, National Geographic World Films produced The Story of the Weeping Camel, and it's a delightfully warm and engaging film about some photogenic nomadic herders in the Gobi Desert and their camels. So, of course, it has that
Fast Runner/
Robert Flaherty-type thing going for it, in that this is an interesting culture with which few viewers will be overly familiar. Most Westerners don't know much about camels and rarely have the opportunity to see one brought into this world. They are surprisingly interesting creatures. For one thing, when they are born, their humps are all floppy. Filmmakers Luigi Falorni and Byambasuren Davaa (who is originally from Mongolia, where the film was shot) were fortunate enough to be on hand when a camel crisis occurred, of just the type they had planned to invent, if necessary. So while the film has an appropriately calm pace, befitting the lives it depicts, there is also an elementally powerful narrative drive in the story of a mother that rejects her offspring. The story of the young boy's (the undeniably adorable Uuganbaatar Ikhbayar) first exposure to TV and video games also offers trenchant commentary on the inexorable erosion of ancient tribal cultures. Beyond that, the film is entertaining and surprisingly moving. The camel isn't the only one who weeps. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide