The Story of the Weeping Camel Review
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, Rovi
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