A young girl finds a puppy while she's out playing. At first her father won't let her keep him, he could be dangerous and they don't have the means to look after him. But over time he grows attached to the mutt and when he proves himself to be a hero he becomes a true member of the family. At first glance The Cave of the Yellow Dog could easily be mistaken for the kind of film Disney built an empire on, but scratch the surface and there's so much more.

The latest film from the director of the Oscar-nominated The Story of the Weeping Camel, The Cave of the Yellow Dog once again revolves around a family of nomadic farmers and their daily struggle to survive. The Batchuluun Family provide the heart of the film, but the real story is the continued existence of nomadic families and whether or not their kind of life can survive.

This may all sound a bit heavy for a casual evening in the picture house, but worry not; this film has another huge plus point going for it: cuteness. If you like watching really cute toddlers playing with their even cuter puppy then this is the film for you.

The Batchuluun children, specifically the daughter who finds the puppy and around whom much of the film revolves, have the kind of screen presence that Ben Affleck can only dream of. In a particularly amusing scene, one of the children is playing with some ceramic ornaments. When she picks up a Buddha statue and starts blowing into it like a trumpet, her younger brother wanders over to her and tells her to 'Stop playing with God'. This scene is worth the admission price alone.

My one problem with this film is that it is being classed as a documentary. The Director Byambasuren Davaa has definitely captured a way of live that is foreign to most of us, and under considerable threat from the spread of modernity in her native Mongolia, but the film itself has too clean a narrative for it to be considered documentary filmmaking.

A true documentary plants a camera in front of an event and lets it capture whatever happens. Here there are too many classic narrative devices used for it to have just been a coincidence. For this film to have just happened with absolutely no direction from Davaa would make her the luckiest documentarian in the world. But that's just me being finicky.

Whatever genre this film ends up in, it doesn't stop it from being both an entertaining hour and a half and an extremely important record of a way of life that will more than likely cease to exist in the very near future. But even if the nomadic farming doesn't work out, I'm sure there's casting directors the world over looking for actors who can fill a screen like the Batchuluun children. Sorry Ben, looks like you might be out of a job. Perhaps you could try nomadic farming? I know a great film all about it.

Kevin Sheeky

Rated TBC (see IFCO website for details)
The Cave of the Yellow Dog is released on 14th July 2006
The Cave of the Yellow Dog – Official website