(Die Geschichte vom weinenden Kamel). Before there was “faux doc” there was Nanook of the North. Flaherty's brilliant coup-an ethnographic film that was in fact enacted-remains the benchmark for a modern craft with a patina of tradition. Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni, in tribute to Nanook, have created its opposite, a film whose humor and surface honesty are as sparkling as the night sky, but whose spiritual depths seem bottomless. Their collaborators are a nomadic family in the Gobi Desert in South Mongolia who recreate the drama of their life, and that of their camels. That's right, and high drama it is, when the difficult birth of a rare white camel causes the mother to reject the odd specimen. For Odgoo and Ikhee, whose own children radiate grace and not a little Ozu-like impishness, this is cruel to witness. But the mother continues to freeze out her colt-literally, when the elements conspire-in what becomes the Stella Dallas (in reverse) of cameldom. Even the camera seems to be asking: Will the mare come around, or will her baby die for want of love? Odgoo and Ikhee send their boys to town-a picaresque adventure in itself-to bring back something so beautiful, so haunting as to make a grown camel cry.