Movie: The Story of the Weeping Camel

I wrote a pretty funny post about Mongolian cinema here. I just read it again. It's not bad!

For today, though, I'm going to reflect a bit more seriously on "The Story of the Weeping Camel".

I'm trying to think when I first knew this movie had come out. It seems like it came to my attention in Cincinnati in 2005 when the Deke and I were visiting Adrienne and Nathan and I was poking around in the district near the U of Cincinnati and found an art movie house that was playing "Hustle and Flow" and "Murderball" and it seems like "Weeping Camel" was also being shown or about to be shown.

I didn't go. I did, however, visit the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and marveled at a wall where one ball was mounted for each of Pete Rose's 4,256 hits and where I looked at a model of Crosley Field and remembered watching Vada Pinson on television run up the slight grade that served as a warning track as he camped under a long fly ball. I loved that sloped outfield feature of Crosley Field.

I don't think "Weeping Camel" was at that theater in Cincinnati now that I think about it. Oh well.

So, I didn't watch "The Story of the Weeping Camel" in Cincinnati, but a few years ago, when my struggles with mental depression were at a nadir, I had decided to try to medicate myself by watching at least one movie every day.

It's funny. My doctor sent me to see a therapist around that time. I only went to this guy once. His self-centeredness creeped me right out. All he talked about was himself as a psychologist of elite athletes and his therapy area was plastered with certificates, pictures, and other crap, all about him.

Anyway, he asked me what I was doing to take care of myself. I told him I watched movies, at least one a day. He asked me to name some and it was the usual litany of "Raging Bull" and "Apocalypse Now" and "Godfather".

He thought I needed to lighten up.

Well, about that same time, I bought a bargain priced copy of "The Story of the Weeping Camel" at Hollywood Video.

It's a Mongolian documentary.

I put it on late in the evening. I fell asleep while watching it.

It's a slow movie. Not much happens. There's wind. Yurts. The Gobi Desert. And camels.

But I was tired that first time.

So I gave it another shot another evening when I felt better.

With this viewing, I began to realize that the movie was inviting me to enter into a pace of living within a way of understanding time that I was unfamiliar with.

It's a movie about patience, about a family who patiently bends their will and their ways of doing things to the demands of the harsh environment of the Gobi Desert.

I began to realize that while the movie told a story about a family, their place in the world was very small. In some ways, then, they had a small role in the story.

Nature starred. The movie moved at a pace congruent with the patience nature demands.

I began to let the movie work on me. I surrendered myself to becoming a Mongolian nomadic sheep and camel rancher and to the idea of depending on living in cooperation with the environment to survive.

I won't tell you why it's called "The Story of the Weeping Camel". Watch the movie and find out. If you are looking for escape, this movie will invite you to escape to a world of story telling, reliance on nature, traditions and rituals, a journey, and to a world where joining song and with a camel's inward being has a miraculous outcome.

It's an amazing documentary film.