A MOTHER'S NATURE

THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL: One of the most distinctive discoveries of recent years on the international festival circuit, The Story of the Weeping Camel comes described by its makers as a "narrative documentary" in that it blends unstaged sequences with recreations based on authentic experience.

Co-directors Byambasuren Davaa traces her inspiration for the film back to a story from her childhood as the granddaughter of nomads in her native Mongolia.

The narrative is set among four generations in a nomadic family of herders living in three large yurts (tents) in the Gobi desert, tending to their camels over 50 kilometres away from the nearest settlement. When one calf is born after a particularly slow and difficult birth, its mother rejects it, refusing to give her offspring the milk it vitally needs to survive. The family invokes an ancient ritual, summoning a violinist from a distant village to perform the music that, they believe and hope, will bring the camel and the calf closer together.

Davaa brings this story to the screen with her Italian co-director and cinematographer, Luigi Falorni, a fellow graduate from Munich Film School. They have produced a classically simple ethnographic film that provides a fascinating insight into the 21st-century life of an essentially primitive culture. The family uses binoculars to track the movements of their herds. They listen to a battery-operated radio. Some of them smoke cigarettes. In the village where the violinist is found, the small community has access to satellite television, motorcycles and a van.

However, the film is at its most engaging in observing and capturing the power of nature, as the camels huddle together while fierce gale force winds blow into a storm, and as the camera lingers over the long, awkward birth of the calf, its white legs sticking out while the mother grunts and walks in a circle, trying to find a comfortable position - until the delivery is shown in close-up. The attempts of the herders to get mother and baby to bond are deeply affecting in this captivating film.

- Michael Dwyer