The Story Of The Weeping Camel

Film I've been trying to find a way to review The Story of the Weeping Camel since I saw it on Tuesday, but I'm defeated. Nothing happens yet it seems to be about everything -- sort of like last year's French school documentary Etre et Avoir. It's one of those films which requires the audience to forget everything they know about celluloid and just enjoy. It starts slowly, creeps up on you and by the end you're hooked and passionately want to tell everyone else to see it. So that's all I'm going to do. See it. If it isn't at least nominated for the next BBC Four World Cinema award I'll be very surprised.

What was gratifying was the number of children in the audience watching it with their parents whispering in their ear explaining what is happening. I usually hate that kind of audience, but on this occasion I didn't mind. It was probably the first subtitled film these kids were seeing and if you can get them past that prejudice that young, a whole world of cinema is open to them for the rest of their life.

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