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When was the last time you saw a movie starring a camel? No, I don't mean an animated camel like in The Emperor's New Groove, but a real live camel? A long time, right? Maybe never. Well this week if you live in Chicago, you have not one but two movies that fit the bill. The Big Animal, a Polish film directed by Jerzy Stuhr, has opened at the Music Box theater while The Story of the Weeping Camel opens this Friday at the Landmark theater. Both are well worth your time, though for quite different reasons.

The Big Animal will have a bit more cachet in arthouse circles, seeing as it's based on an early Krzysztof Kieslowski script. Directed by Polish actor Jerzy Stuhr--who starred in six different Kieslowski films, including Decalogue and White--The Big Animal stars Stuhr and Anna Dymna as a happily married couple. One day, an enormous camel, left behind by a circus, wanders into their yard. Zygmunt (Stuhr) decides to keep the camel and happily parades it into the town square, where he is greeted with enthusiasm by the town's children and even some adults. But soon Zygmunt's daily walks with the camel draw the irritation of his neighbors. They see him, somewhat rightly, as a show-off, flaunting something he has that they don't. Soon, he's being called into the tax assessor's office, treated shabbily at orchestra practice, and hassled at his house.

The Story of the Weeping Camel is a much different tale. It takes place in the Gobi desert of Mongolia, where a multi-generational family herds camels and goats. Part fiction, part documentary, and part ethnography, the film is a gorgeous portrayal of life in the wilderness. The first half of the film feels like a straight documentary as we're introduced to the family, from the old great-grandparents who play cards at night to the little baby who cries when its mother goes out to feed the goats. The story kicks in when the camels are ready to give birth. One camel in particular has a difficult labor and, after a white colt (a sign of good luck) is finally born, rejects her son. The family does its best to force mother and child together, but the mother camel adamantly refuses to let the baby nurse. So the herders decide to perform an ancient ritual, involving singing and a violin.

Until I saw these films, I hadn't realized what a majestic animal a camel is. Not only is it huge, but it has a stoic grace about it. The camel in The Big Animal truly is a big animal and seems completely out of place in the modern Polish town. In contrast, The Story of the Weeping Camel is set in modern-day Mongolia (far-away villagers have satellite dishes), but the camels are a part of life, a life that hasn't changed much for centuries.

Co-directors Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi Falorni capture that life with stunning color compositions. Their cinematography, often filmed at the magic hour of sunset, imparts a grandeur to the mountainous desert that is almost awe-inspiring, and their close-ups of the camels' eyes are mysteriously captivating. Interestingly, The Big Animal is shot, by Academy-award winning cinematographer Pawel Edelman (The Pianist), in crisp black-and-white. It's as if Stuhr is trying to exoticize his location, while the filmmakers of Weeping Camel are trying to document theirs.

As I watched both films, I was struck by this idea of the exotic. Why are we drawn to the new and different? Would The Big Animal be just as interesting if it featured a horse instead? Would I find Weeping Camel so transfixing if it was set in the prairies of Nebraska? The answer to both questions is almost certainly no. Indeed, while there is a comfort in the familiar (witness the crowds for Shrek 2), there is a thrill in the exotic. It's fascinating to watch the Mongolian family go through their daily routine, to see how they not only survive but thrive. And The Big Animal has some wonderfully weird moments involving the camel and music, which are marvelously complemented by the high-contrast nighttime lighting.

Yet, there's more than just the exotic that makes these two films special. In particular, The Story of the Weeping Camel works beautifully at the level of story. It's a simple tale, one that reaches back to the mythic. There's an intuition between man and beast that contradicts our modern world and reminds us of a more ancient time. And yet it's also one that has much to say about the human condition. This family has so much in common with our own families. When a young boy has a chance to watch television, he's transfixed, which provokes an older woman to scold, "Sit properly at the table and don't stare at the tv." More importantly, their dreams for their children are not fundamentally different from ours, and the way they interact with each other is similar to what takes place in our own homes every day. In that sense, The Story of the Weeping Camel fulfills the highest aims of art: to show us something new while reminding us of what's true, to take us out of ourselves while revealing what's inside ourselves.

While both The Big Animal and Weeping Camel are worth seeing, if you only have time for one camel movie this week, make it the one from Mongolia. The Story of the Weeping Camel is brilliant and beautiful, exotic and yet deeply revealing of the human condition. It's one of the finest films you'll see all year.  

J. Robert Parks  6/14/2004

The Story of the Weeping Camel 
The Big Animal,