Blog From The Bench

Title: Cave of the Yellow Dog
Director: Byambasuren Davaa

Cave of the Yellow Dog is one of the hottest tickets here at the Philadelphia Film Festival. Despite three showings (most films only get two) it was one of the first films to sell out. The Festival's organizers moved the screenings to bigger theaters, but still there were longs lines of people who had to be turned away. So what's Cave of the Yellow Dog got that's set this city's film lovers all abuzz?

Not much, it turns out. Cave of the Yellow Dog is small, precious film about a young Mongolian girl and a dog she rescues from an abandoned cave. That's about it, really. The young girl's mother does some cooking, her infant siblings totter around and her father skins a sheep. This is a film is really nothing more than a 90 minute profile of a nondescript, nomadic Mongolian family, with a cute dog thrown in, you know, for the kinds.

To the extent that this film was created to coo over, it succeeds. The dog is cute, the children are even cuter, and the scenery is breathtaking. However, the film's slightness dooms it to be soon forgotten. Still, for a rainy Sunday afternoon one could do much worse.

Grade: B