Weeping Like a Camel

If you are a mom, or if you love animals, or ethnographic documentaries, I highly recommend The Story of the Weeping Camel. When Mama ordered it from Netflix, I was more than a bit suspect--a story about a Mongolian family's camel herd and one neglected colt? But the film was mesmerizing, touching, even cathartic, as you saw three generations of one family try to encourage the reluctant mother camel to suckle her newborn colt after a very difficult birth (yep, you get to see it here). You can just see the post-partum depression in this camel and totally empathize with her. They go to great lengths, even sending the young boys of the family to the local town center to find a violinist to conduct a musical ritual after the lamas' prayers have failed. You see how the family takes care of each other (in their brightly-decorated yurts), how the camels take care of their young, how the mother camel is so distraught. Of course, we checked how it ended before we watched. And while there will be tears--yours and the camel's--all's well that ends well.