Die Höhle des gelben Hundes
Tags: storytelling

Plot synopsis:
The story opens with Nansal returning from boarding school to her family. The family of five lives in a yurt and lives off of their livestock, which include sheep, goats, and cattle. Nansal's father is worried about his family's survival because of the wolves that have been attacking their herd.
While Nansal is out collecting dung, she stumbles across a cave in which she finds a black and white dog. She brings the dog home and names it "Zochor" (Spot). Her father is worried, knowing that wolves live in caves and may follow its scent and kill their livestock.
The father departs for town on his motorbike, to sell the pelts of the sheep killed by wolves. He instructs his wife to get rid of the dog before he is home. Nansal is sent out to graze the herd, but she is distracted and gets lost. The mother is distraught when the herd comes back without Nansal and goes out looking for her.
Meanwhile, Nansal finds refuge in the yurt of an elderly woman. The old lady feeds Nansal and gives her shelter while a storm passes. It is here that Nansal hears the story of the Cave of the Yellow Dog. In this story, a yellow dog is trapped in a cave with no exit by a man to cure his daughter's illness.
The mother finds Nansal soon after and takes her home. Zochor is still with the family when the father returns home. He is angry but still gives gifts to his wife and children nonetheless, including a plastic ladle and a flashlight (torch). The father tries to sell Zochor to some wolf hunters, but Nansal tells them she found him in a cave and the deal falls through.
It is time for the family to move on. They pack up all of their belongings and the yurt and load them onto carts to be pulled by their cattle. The three children are put onto the wagons, with Nansal watching her younger brother. Zochor is tied to a stake so he cannot follow them. Nansal is distracted by Zochor and does not watch her brother. Her brother escapes.
The family travels several miles until they realize that their son is not with them. The father turns back immediately and rushes back on his horse. Meanwhile, their son is rushing towards a flock of vultures. He ventures near a stream, while moving further and further from Zochor. When the son is right next to the flock, Zochor breaks free and scares them away. This is witnessed by the father who, in gratitude for protecting his son from harm, accepts Zochor into the family.
In the final scene, the family's wagons travel down the road, with Zochor in the wagon with Nansal and a truck driving down the road blaring reminders to vote in the upcoming elections.

Review: Its a beautiful, quiet movie about the scenic Mongolian nomad life.
The story of the heroine of the movie, a little girl, is quietly told in a manner that Hollywood productions have almost exclusively unlearned.
This little movie has an odd strength to it, probably drawing it from the old Mongolian culture it themes to depict..
The story is simple, a girl who wants to keep a stray dog and a dad who refuses, because he believes it might have grown up with wolves .
It is not an ethnographic documentary or a guide to life in the steppe...it is just a film about humble people who live differently and who can be happy without the modern comforts.
Quite simply, "The Cave Of The Yellow Dog" is a wonderful film: it is heart-warming, life-affirming.
It is simple, touching, unpretentious, with a documentary quality to it (how do people live there); it came as no surprise to see on the closing credits that this is a genuine family.
For instance the reason behind the father's reluctance; the mixing of dogs and wolves; the people's economic conditions; the (potentially dangerous) presence of vultures in the background, and so on, all of which get to play a part at some later stage.
yeah, I think some people may feel this way.Perhaps they just watched too many Hollywood films and get used to the pace and storyline.
Spending time with the Batchuluun family in the Mongolian steppes - a simple, endearing family story.
Off the bat, the film title "Cave of the Yellow Dog" is poetically applied (it could have been "The Adventures of Nansal and Zochor").
You'd notice the little dog that 5-year old Nansal found is not exactly 'yellow,' hence need not wonder about its color - simply be an 'invisible guest' to the everyday living of the Batchuluun family of five.
Filmmaker Byambasuren Davaa ("The Story of the Weeping Camel" 2003) artistically shows us the integral process of dismantling the portable tent (yurt) they live in, spoke by spoke.
Little things and family togetherness sure mean a lot.The editing language (how the story was told) optimizes close-up's, nature/landscape scenes vs.
This may not have the high drama of Hollywood's "The Yearling" 1946, the fun and solid companionship in "My Dog Skip" 1999, the collie star in "Lassie, Come Home" 1943, or the child acting genius in the Swedish "My Life as A Dog" 1985 - but the premise of a little girl and her beloved stray dog somehow has an intrinsic mix of family values and parent-child lovingness irresistible.
Present life.' Hints of philosophical drifts in Davaa's second 'docu-narrative' - Still thinking about "Cave of the Yellow Dog." At one point in the film: "What were you in your previous life?" little Nansa asked her mother.
She is inquisitive, and papa said to her that 'no one really dies, just become something else in the next life.' We're fortunate to be able to follow along with Mongolian filmmaker Davaa and her film crew (from Germany), capturing the family spirits of this five-member unit.
(Reminds me of "Close to Eden" 1991, a Russian film also with Mongolian landscapes and nomadic life.) And the music is wonderful, at times have strains liken to Philip Glass (as in filmmaker Godfrey Reggio's cinematic montage pieces).
If you'd like to spend some 'quiet' non-stressful time at the movies, try "Cave of the Yellow Dog." Check out the official site 'caveoftheyellowdog.co.uk'.
From 'Director's Notes' we can gain insights to how Davaa came to create her film and the thoughts behind the stories she wanted to tell, including the tale about the fable of the Yellow Dog..
By telling the story from a child's perspective, it is very observational, and captures little details that may seem passé to those within the culture, but fascinating to others.The cinematography and music are both quietly beautiful, creating a nice atmosphere.
Critics seem to have missed an important underlying message of the film: the life of the nomads is incompatible with the modern world and it is inescapable for this particular family, no matter how much they may want to move on.
As the older sibling tells the baby, 'You can't play with God.' (or, apparently, alter fate)The basket becomes a prison - literally, when the girl places it over the dog at one point - and the world of the steppes is dangerous, full of wolves, vultures and even storms.
For all it's picturesque scenery and domestic charm, this is a redundant life, for which any political change will come too late; only the children will have a chance to leave - the symbolic yellow dog(s) of the wise woman's story, which the parents will need to sacrifice..
A little Mongolian girl makes friends with a puppy she finds in a cave; Her father wants her to leave dog where she found it - little girl struggles to keep dog.
This film is so beautiful - the rolling steppe, the vast and broody skies, storms, lost children, marauding wolves - lots of excitement - car chases and people screwing and exploding bombs with bits of bodies flying about are not the only excitement available to us thank God.It is exciting to see a mode of life so totally different to our own and portrayed so honestly and without any moral squint at all.
And although the film suggested (never preached) that this way of life might not endure for too long I, for one, felt that in spite of the hardships and unrelenting battle with nature involved in their lives, going to work in McDonalds could never be seen as a tempting alternative.Go and see it..
Just remember: This is a story about the life of the last true Mongolians of the Steppe..
I must confess that I was unfamiliar with director Byambasuren Davaa's work before I sat down and watched The Cave of the Yellow Dog-Director of The Weeping Camel- so I have no measuring stick to compare against't this film.
Even though, Cave stands well enough on its own.The Cave of the Yellow Dog centers around Nansaa, A little girl in a family of five nomadic Mongolians.
One day Nasaa comes across a small dog hiding in a cave, which she quickly names Zachor (means Spot) and takes home (altough her father is most displeased about it) From then on the film centers mostly on the three children in the household, and Nasaa's relationship with the dog.
This film is pure simplicity, in terms of plot, and is mostly about people living in a basic, if not normal, world.
The landscapes portrayed in Cave are of the Mongolian Highlands and are amongst't the most beautiful ever captured on film.
It really has to be seen to be believed.The acting is especially well done, especially when you factor in the extremely Young age of the three children in the film (god knows how long it took for the director to capture many of the scenes).
Mom and Dad (as the film never really lets you know their names) also did great jobs in portraying the lives of nomadic peoples.The score is almost as beautiful as the landscapes featured in the film.
But why it may lack a huge budget, this movie has a big heart, as well as a very relevant political message.So if a good family story is your kind of thing, or your interested in seeing achingly beautifully filmed shots of the Mongolian Highlands, or if you just want to bring home a movie your significant other won't complain about, absolutely see this film.My rating 9 out of 10 (Worth Owning)..
I think then you'll enjoy that journey with this nomadic family where everyday life is moving together with the change of times with unavoidable anxious feeling for the invasion of a modern world.
But here the story is seen from the young children eyes, their loving and concerned parents and older people who seem beyond concerns and more resigned to the grandeur of life.
Mongolian nomads show how a family can work together.
A Mongolian girl living a nomadic agrarian life with her parents and younger siblings finds a puppy.
The director Byambasuren Davaa has surpassed her earlier film of the Weeping Camel to show the struggle for survival in the Mongolian plains.
Life and times of a contemporary nomadic Mongolian shepherd's family.
Byambasuren Davaa, a Mongolian ex-pat filmmaker living in Germany, here follows up his 2004 documentary masterpiece, "The Story of the Weeping Camel," with another tale about the daily lives of a real nomadic shepherd family  the Batchuluuns  that live on the isolated Mongolian veld."Weeping Camel" featured an intense drama, chock full of suspense, when a postpartum camel rejects its albino newborn, thereby threatening its life.
But her father, Urjindorj, wants the dog  Zocher - lost pronto, fearing that it was raised by wolves that might show up and slaughter the family's goats.
There is a brief yet dangerous turning point in this story, one that modifies Urjindorj's attitude.The story, which, like "Camel," also provides allusions to the supernatural beliefs of these people, takes place over a summer, and, as autumn draws close, we have the opportunity to witness the step by step dismantling of the family's commodious yurt and its furnishings, as they prepare to migrate to more propitious winter grazing land.
I am the only member of my family who likes this, beautiful, peaceful, slow-going (in a good way) film.
It's about a little girl who lives with her family in Mongolia and how she finds a little dog in a cave.
I recommend this to people who would like something new, subtitled films (it's in Mongolian with English subtitles), dogs and not too much humour (there's a little but not much which I like).
It took tremendous courage to follow real people in their daily lives in order to create a story; proving that plot and special effects often get in the way of artistic subtleties.This is a film treasure because it captures the heart in an effort to open a window to a fading way of sustainable life..
The Cave of the Yellow Dog is one such film, and having just been mesmerized by it I cannot believe it has taken me almost a decade to discover it, but, from the other perspective, I am overjoyed that I did finally discover it.
The other reason is that I am in the energy capital of the country Atyrau, a washed out hole of a town, infected by the rape of the earth and the desire for greed by ignorant oilers and the like, most of whom come from the west, North America, and Europe, and are the complete and utter antithesis of the Mongol family being filmed in TCOTYD.
What The Cave of the Yellow Dog has as a film is depth, but it is a lightness of depth, not a profundity, and it is this lightness that drew me in from the very first scene.
The simplicity of it all (yet within a deep complexity) of a family eking out a harmonious existence on the great Mongolian steppe, is overwhelming.There is within this film a searing soulfulness: these are not children being exploited for making movies; these are simply children being filmed as they are.
And that is to say nothing of all the beautiful things that are made by loving hands and not machines: their clothes, their furniture, their yurt itself.The family play themselves, the word play itself being operative here, as there is no work, no toil or coarse superfluous labour as we have come to know it in the west, but simply endeavor, and the play of song and dance.
It is a film, like the great steppe itself, which cannot be explicated, but can only be lived, or at the next best, watched with an open heart.
In Atyrau, sadly, there is no one-ness, little harmony left, as the new younger and more seduced civilization enters the sauna of need, greed, and fear, all the while sucking the life right out of them.Civilization is a slaughterhouse, but here on the great steppe, in the cave of the yellow dog, civilization is nothing; and it is this nothingness if attended to sensitively and intelligently enough that will bend your soul back into shape..
The movie about a small Nomad family who live in the grasslands of the Mongolia.The story follows when a young girl named Nansal returns home for summer vacation.
There was a story where an old woman tell to the girl, it was really good, a meaningful proverb.The family in the movie was a real nomad family.
They also captured the beauty of grassland of Mongolia.Due to this movie I came to know a little about the people called Nomad.
No wonder that the cast of the film was an actual nomadic family!
Especially, the children and the eponymous 'dog' of the film were the very epitome of cuteness!
The director of The Story Of The Weeping Camel takes a different look at life in the Mongolian wilderness, having previously followed a family of nomadic shepherds and their camels to award-winning success.Whether or not you've seen Weeping Camel, this story stands proudly as a parable of life's possibilities and limitations, and how we must all come to terms with them – wherever we live.
This movie is so simple and things just seem to happen naturally like if you were sharing the life of this very touching family.
If you dig cute toddlers and beautiful landscapes (which I do both), go hiking in the countryside instead of wasting your time with this obvious and pretentious film which badly lacks both story and humor, but of course will be highly successful with a lot of people, because it doesn't hurt anybody and has all the messages your girlfriend might show responsive to.
Example given: when the film starts the viewer is told that the scoop of the family has been damaged and the husband gets a new one in the far away city - this time a plastic one, which of course melts on the stove after some days (plastic is bad for the noble nomads), so he eventually repairs the old one - would he have done that in the first place there wouldn't have been the chance for the makers of the film to pull every conservationist on their side.
Simply put, THE CAVE OF THE YELLOW DOG is a beautifully made movie by Byamsuren Davaa.
Unlike her previous film, THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL, which was also a very good movie, THE CAVE OF THE YELLOW DOG is polished and professional.
Their oldest daughter goes to school, and their youngest daughter would like to live in the city because "People can pee inside their houses there." Byamsuren Davaa says that one purpose of the film is to present a way of life on film.
The artistry, plot, and film continuity are above average, with good use of color, scenes balancing nature, and change over time, and the seamless use of animals.
While watching THE STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL, one wonders how things would work out for the the little camel, one is not part of the action.
Picturesque and unbridled, THE CAVE OF THE YELLOW DOG is Mongolian in the extreme.
More of a stream of consciousness in terms of style, The Cave of the Yellow Dog's director, Byambasuren Davaa, gives us her second feature length film that has the look and feel of a wayward docudrama but gives us a story that materializes by happenstance (her first being the well-done STORY OF THE WEEPING CAMEL).Watching the extra features on the DVD gives one the insights you'll need to understand Ms. Davaa's style of filming.
The only "story" that weaves its way in is that of the yellow dog and his cave, revealed by an old crone who lives near our Mongolian family's current location.The family is the Batchuluun family, a husband, wife, a mischievous (and very young) son, a young daughter, and another daughter  the eldest  Nansal.
It is Nansal who we get to know best as she returns from school in "the city" to her family's nomadic grounds in mountainous western Mongolia.
The topography is often more interesting than the story itself, which meanders hither and thither; from children playing ...to working the farm to finding a not-yellow dog in a nearby cave.The puppy that Nansal finds is the culmination of what should have been the film's central point.
I won't say anymore, though, for fear of giving away what could be considered the "plot." Getting back to the extra features...Director Davaa all but admits that they really had no plan on what to film, just taking it day-by-day and letting the story unfold as it may.
What if the plot hadn't developed and all we'd gotten were glimpses into the life of a western Mongolian family?
The movie demonstrates a typical daily life of a Mongolian nomadic family in the vast steppe lands of Mongolia.
The little girl Nansal found a little puppy in a cave when taking the dungs for her mother.
The twist of the story happens when the family moved to another region and left the little puppy behind.
The folk story that were told about "The cave of the yellow dog" by the grandma to Nansal.
The nomadic living style of Mongolian people as the move to better place for their livestock.
People can also find in the movie the economic hardship of traditional Mongolian people who have to choose between sticking with the traditional nomadic living style or moving to city..
If you haven't seen Cave of The Yellow Dog, please forget and ignore all you have read, and just allow the film to wander cherishingly through the green plains of a beautiful land.