Picturesque and unbridled, THE CAVE OF THE YELLOW DOG is Mongolian in the extreme. More of a stream of consciousness in terms of style, The Cave of the Yellow Dog's director, Byambasuren Davaa, gives us her second feature length film that has the look and feel of a wayward docudrama but gives us a story that materializes by happenstance (her first being the well-done STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL).
Watching the extra features on the DVD gives one the insights you'll need to understand Ms. Davaa's style of filming. No script. No actors. Just real people doing real lines ...for the most part. The only "story" that weaves its way in is that of the yellow dog and his cave, revealed by an old crone who lives near our Mongolian family's current location.
The family is the Batchuluun family, a husband, wife, a mischievous (and very young) son, a young daughter, and another daughter the eldest Nansal. It is Nansal who we get to know best as she returns from school in "the city" to her family's nomadic grounds in mountainous western Mongolia. The panoramic shots of the surrounding countryside are achingly beautiful, with fiery sunsets, Grand Canyon-sized valleys, and hillocks of grazing lands mixed with flowering blooms. The topography is often more interesting than the story itself, which meanders hither and thither; from children playing ...to working the farm to finding a not-yellow dog in a nearby cave.
The puppy that Nansal finds is the culmination of what should have been the film's central point. Her obsession over the dog and befriending it causes a rift between Nansal and her father, who doesn't want the dog to attract prowling packs of wolves to their homestead and their goat herd. Nansal loses interest in everything but the pup, even going so far as to not pay attention to the family herd and, eventually, to lose sight of her young brother whom she's supposed to be keeping an eye on. When Nansal stumbles upon an old lady living in a distant yurt, she learns the story of what can happen when someone finds a dog in a cave (although the old lady's story-dog was yellow and Nansal's is black and white ...and named Spot.) ... I won't say anymore, though, for fear of giving away what could be considered the "plot." Getting back to the extra features...
Director Davaa all but admits that they really had no plan on what to film, just taking it day-by-day and letting the story unfold as it may. So what became an actual plot developed by accident, which I find a bit irritating and refreshing. What if the plot hadn't developed and all we'd gotten were glimpses into the life of a western Mongolian family? I can't help but think that this would've been disastrous for the film. But, thankfully, the story DID come through and we get something unique and pretty darned original.
Watching the extra features on the DVD gives one the insights you'll need to understand Ms. Davaa's style of filming. No script. No actors. Just real people doing real lines ...for the most part. The only "story" that weaves its way in is that of the yellow dog and his cave, revealed by an old crone who lives near our Mongolian family's current location.
The family is the Batchuluun family, a husband, wife, a mischievous (and very young) son, a young daughter, and another daughter the eldest Nansal. It is Nansal who we get to know best as she returns from school in "the city" to her family's nomadic grounds in mountainous western Mongolia. The panoramic shots of the surrounding countryside are achingly beautiful, with fiery sunsets, Grand Canyon-sized valleys, and hillocks of grazing lands mixed with flowering blooms. The topography is often more interesting than the story itself, which meanders hither and thither; from children playing ...to working the farm to finding a not-yellow dog in a nearby cave.
The puppy that Nansal finds is the culmination of what should have been the film's central point. Her obsession over the dog and befriending it causes a rift between Nansal and her father, who doesn't want the dog to attract prowling packs of wolves to their homestead and their goat herd. Nansal loses interest in everything but the pup, even going so far as to not pay attention to the family herd and, eventually, to lose sight of her young brother whom she's supposed to be keeping an eye on. When Nansal stumbles upon an old lady living in a distant yurt, she learns the story of what can happen when someone finds a dog in a cave (although the old lady's story-dog was yellow and Nansal's is black and white ...and named Spot.) ... I won't say anymore, though, for fear of giving away what could be considered the "plot." Getting back to the extra features...
Director Davaa all but admits that they really had no plan on what to film, just taking it day-by-day and letting the story unfold as it may. So what became an actual plot developed by accident, which I find a bit irritating and refreshing. What if the plot hadn't developed and all we'd gotten were glimpses into the life of a western Mongolian family? I can't help but think that this would've been disastrous for the film. But, thankfully, the story DID come through and we get something unique and pretty darned original.