The Cave of the Yellow Dog (U)

Dir: Byambasuren Davaa, 2005, Mongolia/Germany, Mongolian with English subtitles,
93 mins
Cast: The Batchuluun family

The only films that used to come out of Mongolia were cumbersome propaganda tracts wielded by neighbouring Russia but that all changed when The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003) introduced the work of former television director Byambasuren Davaa and her depiction of the breathtaking vistas that make up her country. …Weeping Camel garnered an Oscar nomination and now this follow-up, teased from the same vein, does an perfectly acceptable job of showcasing a nomadic culture that, through the inevitably evolution of the world, is slowly dying out.

Loosely based upon an old Mongolian legend that identified a yellow dog as a harbinger of ill health, Davaa follows the Batchuluun family in their circadian routine which appears so far removed from our own lives that it becomes curiously fascinating. …Weeping Camel focused on the rolling steppes of the Mongolian horizon but here the gaze switches more to the day to day existence which include searching the surrounding area for dung and skinning a sheep both included in unflinching detail.

Never quite slipping into pure documentary the camera follows one of these ‘dung raids’ which results in one of the young children, Nansal, discovering a dog in a deserted cave and then unimaginatively naming him Spot (Zochor in Mongolian). Her father tells her to get rid of it fearing that it may have lived with wolves that will follow its scent and kill the family’s sheep. Nansal ignores her dad and takes the dog with her on speculative forays into the nearby surroundings even though on one occasion the dog disappears, almost causing disastrous consequences. The father eventually stamps his authority and ties the dog up but when the smallest child, Batbavar, disappears and is threatened by vultures the dog manages to convince the father that he belongs as one of the family…

Replace the Mongolian landscape with Venice Beach and the family rituals with a streamlined LA family with a scarily trained dog and the formula is almost that of a cute family drama from Disney. However the difference here is that Dasaa obviously had a genuine bond with her nomadic family and hence the verisimilitude of their life is captured in a very unselfconscious way. The intricacies of their lifestyle are interesting, perhaps more when juxtaposed with the father traveling into the city to buy relatively modern items like plastic spoons, but still after a while even these sojourns become all too familiar.

By depicting their quiet and unspectacular lives and wrapping it in the almost unreal beauty of nature this is a film that doesn’t raise the heartbeat but rubs soothing oil into the temple. Inferior to …Weeping Camel but a subtle and medicinal work none the less.

Rob McCrae