Waste of time

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Absolutely Fantastic

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

When you see a footage of someone struggling alone against nature, don't you always wonder... is the person holding the camera also in danger? Why can't they help each other? Watching this film I had the same confusion i have with all the reality TV shows. Was it (1) a spontaneous shooting with the actors doing real life and just trying to ignore the massive presence of a movie crew. Or (2) was it just a theatrical reenactment of things that had happened in recent past? Or was it (3) pure acting based on a script? The creator of a documentary had always the power of montage, but when you get to decide how people will live and talk in real live is another level of deception. The suspicion of this deception destroys the true content of the artwork and you are left with just travel advertising no matter how beautiful and inspiring it looks.

I'll start by saying the cinematography by Simon Niblett is extraordinary. The scenery is gorgeous to begin with, sure, but it takes real skill to capture the shots he did, and that's what first and foremost makes this a film well worth seeing. The storytelling and pace from Director Otto Bell is also engaging, and it's such a unique tale. And who can forget the heartwarming relationship Aisholpan Nurgaiv has with her father Rys, both playing themselves? They are amazing people. There is a feminist message that is empowering to girls here, and it's a movie suitable for all ages. The film did take some heat for being described as a documentary, and while it's based on true events, it feels staged in portions and is a story told after the fact. Some get quite bent out of shape over that, and to them I would just say get over it and enjoy it for what it is – a beautiful movie.

I remember when this film was considered for the Oscars race. But some people were saying everything from the film was staged, instead of reality. I was like, had no idea what to say for such accusation since I haven't seen it yet. That's when I just had watched 'Brothers of the Wind', an Austrian documentary style feature film on the almost similar theme. So I had lots of expectation on this one, but now, after watching, in fact, while watching itself got frustrated by it and also very happy it did not make into the Oscars.I expected a Mongolian tale and yes, it was, but about a Kazakh family. Except the subtitle for the language spoken in the film, there was an English narration that voiced by Daisy Ridley in the background to explain the events properly. Because this is not an interview kind of documentary, but follows a couple of characters to their adventures. Yep, almost entire film did not look like a natural event, but pre-planned. It's a directional debut for the filmmaker. Definitely he has the capacity, but did not pick the right theme.It's about a nomad family living in the nowhere of Mongolian grassland. The film opened with by saying the eagle training art is older than many historic events and its people the region has seen. So this little family has no son since the art is only passed on to them for generations. But the 13-year-old Aisholpan is interested to follow her father's footstep. That's where it all begins when she begins her training, following to have her own bird before competing in the biggest annual event in the nation.I don't know when the last time I rated a film this low, especially for a documentary film, probably this one is the first. I hated everything about the film since I'm a big animal fan. Lots of people who saw it appreciating without the brain. I wonder, would they all appreciated as well the abduction films like 'Taken from Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story', 'Abducted: The Carlina White Story' et cetera for not revealing the truth, but the crime committed in it, just like an eaglet was abducted in this.For me it looked like about an animal abuse and animal slavery. Everything they did in the film were for pleasure, for the record, for honour and of course for the film-making. Since humans are civilised and at present in the modern world, we had ended many inhumane practices and this is one of them should be abolished as soon as possible.If a farmer uses a cattle (domestic animal) in his field means he's intended to feed the millions. So do you think snatching an eaglet (wild animal) and training it would do the same or any worth. In fact, it is to kill other animals, like the fox. If an eagle hunts a fox in the natural world, that's very natural, but doing it for human is a big imbalance. DON'T SUPPORT SUCH FILM GUYS. Hats off to the Academy Awards for snubbing it. The competition that showed in the film was good, but I really heart broken when they went on to prove even more than that in the third act.It is not an inspiring film, but disgusting. If people/animal fans go after on a fiction feature film like 'Wiener-Dog' for depicting animal(s) badly, why not this documentary film based on the live- real. Please don't show it to the little kids. This film joins the list of those a very few I hate badly such as 'Man vs. Wild'. I regret watching it, but I would have not known such bad practice is still exists in the 21st century. If you are an animal lover like me, stay away from it. Instead, I highly, strongly recommend a beautiful, inspiring, message film 'Brothers of the Wind'. So totally ignorable film.01/10

Are we supposed to believe that a foreign documentary crew just started to follow this girl and her family around before there was anything at all remarkable about her, and that by luck they stumbled upon the one girl who would become an eagle huntress? Or that her father, upon realising that his daughter was going to break new ground in the hunting-with-eagles culture, got in touch with a foreign filmmaker to propose that as a subject for a documentary film? The explanation that makes the most sense for the existence of this film is that the documentarist learned about the girl AFTER she had already become a huntress and then decided to make a film about her, recreating for the screen her past experiences. So everything that we see is probably fake. If it is fake, how do I know that I can believe any of it? Did she (an inexperienced 13-year old with a young eagle) really get first place in that tournament against older and far more experienced men and birds? Was that a real eagle nest that she found with her father? Did she really go down to the nest to capture her eaglet? There is footage that can only come from a GoPro camera attached to her head, but in the long shots we don't see such a camera. Again, it must have been staged, so how do I believe it?