hyped garbage

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

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.

I first saw this movie at the outdoor cinema of La Villette last summer (every summer in the parc of "la villette", north of Paris, they show movies on an inflatable giant screen, people lay in the grass after a picnic or can rent transat chairs and blankets). It was just magical seeing those Mongolian landscapes while the Parisian sky was changing colors from blue to red and dark blue, and feeling the grass and earth beneath. This movie is so simple and things just seem to happen naturally like if you were sharing the life of this very touching family. The scenes with the kids are particularly sweet, makes you want to bury under a warm blanket... especially when the night wind cools you (definitely need a blanket if you lay in the grass to see a movie!).

Through the lens of a native from Mongolia and the mindful hearts of the people in the story, one is transfixed by the dignity of the this world. As an American, I have never experienced such simple artistry in a film. The children are extraordinary in their candid roles. The natural family dynamics work so much better than most theatrics. It took tremendous courage to follow real people in their daily lives in order to create a story; proving that plot and special effects often get in the way of artistic subtleties.This is a film treasure because it captures the heart in an effort to open a window to a fading way of sustainable life.

Critics seem to have missed an important underlying message of the film: the life of the nomads is incompatible with the modern world and it is inescapable for this particular family, no matter how much they may want to move on. From the moment the returned child builds up the heap of dried dung to resemble flats we know she longs for the town. The parents talk of moving there when their daughter returns to school, but the father cannot earn enough to support them. His herdsmen friends talk of the number of people already gone. There is a lot of symbolism here, of which the melted scoop is only one, as well as spoken hints of a fate that traps people within it. As the older sibling tells the baby, 'You can't play with God.' (or, apparently, alter fate)The basket becomes a prison - literally, when the girl places it over the dog at one point - and the world of the steppes is dangerous, full of wolves, vultures and even storms. For all it's picturesque scenery and domestic charm, this is a redundant life, for which any political change will come too late; only the children will have a chance to leave - the symbolic yellow dog(s) of the wise woman's story, which the parents will need to sacrifice.