We are on the arid, windswept Gobi desert of Mongolia. A family of itinerant herdsmen help a valuable camel through a difficult birth, which ends in her rejection of the baby. Various methods of persuasion are tried, to no avail.
There is only one thing left to do. Someone must ride to the nearest town, and find a musician to play to the camel. It's an ancient ritual: after listening to the music, the camel will weep and start to suckle her child.
That's the plot of this gently charming movie, made by Mongolian Byambasuren Davaa and Italian Luigi Falorni, with a cast chosen from the herdsmen and women themselves.
It may be sold as a children's entertainment, but it is much more than that since it speaks simply and eloquently of a fast-disappearing lifestyle which we would do well to respect, and perhaps envy. There are plentiful reminders of Robert Flaherty's classic Nanook of the North.
The astonishing sequences of the camel ignoring its offspring's plaintive cries and then finally listening to the music and weeping are, apparently, in no way faked.
There will, I can assure you, be more than camels dropping a tear as mother and son finally make friends. My row was snuffling heavily, and I had to surreptitiously clean my glasses afterwards. What more need I say? This is something special.
The Story Of The Weeping Camel (Die Geschichte Vom Weinenden Kamel)
Cert: U
