The Story of the Weeping Camel

This is my type of flick!   Set in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, there are no Hollywood stars for thousands of miles.   Byambasuren Davaa’s film was inspired by Flaherty pictures such as ‘Nanook of the North’ in that although it is a recreation, it has a documentary-like quality, striving to portray as accurately as possible the way these Nomadic people live.   The filmmakers call this approach “narrative documentary”.   Though these people don’t have much, they never come off as impoverished or suffering.   They are content in their cozy, colorfully decorated huts.   “The Story of the Weeping Camel” fulfills one of my criteria for a good film: it shows me something I haven’t seen before.

- Jun 28, 2004