A Mongolian family is forced to trade the splendour of the desert for the sprawl of the city in this exquisitely filmed documentary<\/p>\n
Like generations before them, Mongolian herders Davaa and Zaya lead a nomadic life in the Gobi desert, where they tend to their livestock; and life with their four children is a tough but contented one. Moving between the sweeping and the intimate, Gabrielle Brady\u2019s hybrid film juxtaposes the vast splendour of the Mongolian landscape with moments of domestic warmth as the family huddle up together for a nap or a meal, filling the simple shed where they live with laughter.<\/p>\n
In one scene, the young children take turns telling scary stories of mythical happenings and deadly potions. Reality, however, has become much more frightening than fiction. As a result of the climate crisis, unprecedented natural disasters have wiped out countless herds, including Davaa and Zaya\u2019s own. Left without their animals, the family reluctantly moves to the city for better opportunities. Here, Davaa swaps his horse for a bulky excavator as he makes ends meet loading rocks for construction projects. Somewhere in the chasm between his past and current lives, his identity has become lost in limbo, swept up by forces of environmental collapse and economic precariousness.<\/p>\n