The Cave of the Yellow Dog

Posted on Jul 11, 2008 By Martha Garvey

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The Cave of the Yellow Dog boasts a classic dog movie plot: resourceful child finds stray dog, child tangles with parent about keeping stray dog, until the stray dog... well, you should see the movie, so I won’t spoil it. While on paper the storyline reads as classic Disney, don’t expect to find any of its ancillary products at your local fast food joint: this film is shot in ravishing western Mongolia, and the family in question is a group of nomadic shepherds. Ever wondered how you dismantle a yurt? You won't wonder after you see this movie - and you'll be fascinated. (There is a little too much focus on the making of cheese, but that's what a fast forward button is for.)

Director Byambasuren Davaa (whose previous film was The Story of the Weeping Camel) has cast her film with a real family of shepherds, the Batchuluuns - mom, dad, two daughters, a baby boy, and …oh yeah ... the dog: Zochor. Zochor, Mongolian for "Spot," is discovered by Nansal, the family's oldest daughter, while she is gathering dried dung for her mother. Zochor, who looks like the product of crazy love between a Border Collie and a Jack Russell, and is cuteness personified, but not to Nansal's father. The family has already lost two sheep to a wolf attack. Dad fears that Zochor, abandoned by a family that's retreated to the city, has been living with wolves. If they keep Zochor, Dad believes the wolves will return. This sense of foreboding frames the whole film. While the film reverently shows us extraordinary vistas and a placid sheep-tending routine, the city waits, just off-screen. Inevitably, the Batchuluuns will move to the city - but not quite yet.

There is a plot, and the movie is very family friendly, but if your kids are used to special effects, explosions, and gratuitous violence, they may get restless. However, this movie brims with little girl power. What a treat to see Nansal, a tiny, stubborn girl of 6 or 7, fearlessly mount a horse, tend a huge herd of sheep, or retrieve her dog from a dark cave. She could revive a whole city of Ophelias. In an interview on the DVD, the director admitted that one day, the girl playing Nansal decided she didn't want to be filmed anymore. What did they do? "We filmed clouds that day," the director reports. What Nansal wants, Nansal gets.

Presence of dogs: