Our friends Annie and Dave run the podcast "Will You Still Love It Tomorrow". The premise is great - take a film that you love but you haven't seen for ages, and see if it still holds up.
They asked me and Liz to nominate a film to discuss with them. What's something that we loved but last saw 20ish years ago? We suggested The Story of the Weeping Camel. It is my go-to answer when someone asks me for my favourite film - it is sufficiently obscure to elicit further questions and sounds cool enough to make me seem interesting.
So we re-watched it in preparation for discussing it on the podcast. How did it hold up?
It is still my favourite foreign language movie. The story is simple and beautifully told. The cinematography is stunning. It is the perfect mix of heartbreaking and hopeful.
Weeping Camel is presented as a documentary - but it is rather closer to Nanook of the North, mixing documentary and drama. At its heart is the story of motherly love. Deep in the Gobi desert, a camel has a difficult birth and rejects her colt. Can the Mongolian farmers help bring mother and child together?
One of the best aspects of the film is that it is 100% on the side of "show, don't tell". If this were a documentary, there would be pointless narration telling us what was going on. Instead, we're treated as grown-ups. We can plainly see the pain - we don't need it spelled out.
Similarly, the Mongolian language is barely translated. Do you need to know what is being sung as a lullaby to a sleeping (human) baby? No! You understand the context. Similarly, what are the grandparents chatting about while playing cards? It isn't important to the plot, they're just sharing their love for each other.
There's a tension at the core of the movie about the tug between tradition and modernity. The vast and empty vista with all its magnificent beauty holds no appeal to a kid who just wants to watch cartoons on TV. The family's traditions are noble and ancient - but they're all supplemented with modern technology.
Back when Russell T. Davies was pitching Doctor Who in 2005, he said "If the Zogs on planet Zog are having trouble with the Zog-monster [...] who gives a toss?" There's a limit to human empathy. Why should we care about creatures so different to us? The Story of the Weeping Camel shows how wrong Davies was. I don't mean to imply that the Mongolians are an alien species and that their concerns shouldn't bother us - but that with the right skill, it is possible to make humans care about the emotional difficulties of camels in a distant desert.
If you want a gentle, moving, and uplifting movie - I urge you to seek it out. It is a tragedy that the film isn't better known. It is unavailable on any streaming service that I can find. Despite being Oscar nominated, it hasn't be re-released in HD, but you can buy it on DVD.
You can listen to "Will You Still Love It Tomorrow" wherever you get your podcasts.
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