Not having read many reviews, I wasn’t expecting The Story Of The Weeping Camel to be nearly so moving as it turned out to be. Part documentary, part drama (as I understand it the characters were acting, but were playing a story built from their real lives) it draws a picture of life on the fringes of the Gobi desert that becomes quite breathtaking.
It’s difficult to work out whether the event that forms the film’s culmination is a true record, but whether or not it really happened, the portrayal of the melding of lifestyle, music and ritual it conveys is more than worth the rental fee. Whether it is rightly nominated for Best Documentary may be difficult to say, but probably isn’t worth too sustained a debate.