Die Geschichte Vom Weinenden Kamel (2003)

Springtime in the Gobi Desert, South Mongolia. A family of nomadic shepherds assists the births of their camel herd. Hilarity ensues when one of the camels has an excruciatingly difficult delivery but, with help from the family, out comes a rare white colt. Despite the efforts of the shepherds, the mother rejects the newborn, refusing it her milk and her motherly love. When any hope for the little one seems to have vanished, the nomads send their two young boys on a journey through the desert, to a a backwater town in search of a musician who is their only hope for saving the colt's life.

Trivia: The program that Ugna enjoys on TV is the Soviet animation classic "Nu, Pogodi!" (1969).

Despite the title, The Story Of The Weeping Camel, this isn't a story of a weeping camel. It is really a story of a nomadic family's life and struggles. This story seemed to be too tidy and self contained to be a documentary with a happy ending, but after a little research I found out the the story of the camel happened while they were filming the family and decided to use it as the basis of the film. The directors drew on the documentary style of Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North), who recreated events to comprehensively portray his subjects. They also recreated some of the events of the family, but supposedly only changed the fact the the little white camel was born in the middle of the season to say that it was the last camel of the season to be born. At times it was really slow, but that just emphasized the isolation of the family. The family was very dignified (even if one of the older boys was named "Dude") and the mother, Udgoo, was very pretty and sang with a haunting voice, accompanied by the violin. This is one of the movie I promised Amanda I would see because she was able to guess one of my alphabet movies. I picked O Brother Where Art Thou? as her official pick, but the name of this one just intrigued me enough that I am giving her a two-fer. Thanks Amanda, it was good.