D. Byambasuren has now made three mesmerizing
German-funded films about modern-day docudramas exploring facets of modern-day
Mongolia. Her latest, after “The Story of the Weeping Camel” (2003)
and “The Cave of the Yellow Dog” (2005), is about a woman, Urna, a
musician and vocalist from Inner Mongolia, who sets out for desolate Outer
Mongolia to fulfill a promise to her grandmother: that she will have the family
violin repaired (it was broken during the Cultural Revolution) and that she
will search for the lost verses of a song, “The Two Horses of Genghis
Khan.”

That means she must search out rural folk musicians with
an oral tradition passed down through the generations, and thus find out about
herself. The film is officially a documentary, even though it looks like a
narrative film; the real people are re-enacting their own stories, and it”s
very effective and visually striking. Urna knows she isn”t in Ulaanbaatar any
longer when, with in-and-out cell phone reception, she has to throw her phone
in the air to send a text message.

This 90-minuter film will be shown at the Mill valley
film festival in San Francisco, California today.