If Only I Could Hiber­nate – a very fine first feature

Grow­ing up amid rugged plains on the out­skirts of Mongolia’s cap­i­tal, Ulaan­baatar, direc­tor Zol­jar­gal Purevdash was a remark­ably gift­ed stu­dent. So much so that she won a schol­ar­ship to a pres­ti­gious school, set­ting in motion a jour­ney which saw her study film­mak­ing in Tokyo before return­ing to Mon­go­lia to make her first fea­ture, inspired by her expe­ri­ence of grow­ing up. Purevdesh’s close­ness to this inti­mate and ten­der com­ing-of-age sto­ry is pal­pa­ble, one that depicts the uni­ver­sal­i­ty of the strug­gle of liv­ing in indi­gence while main­tain­ing its Mon­go­lian essence.

If Only I Could Hiber­nate is an uncom­pli­cat­ed film. Ulzii, a fresh-faced and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly gift­ed teenage boy, based loose­ly on Purevdash her­self and deft­ly brought to life by the first-time actor Battsooj Uurt­saikh, com­mits to win­ning a physics com­pe­ti­tion for a schol­ar­ship in order to alle­vi­ate his fam­i­ly from pover­ty. How­ev­er, after his alco­holic moth­er aban­dons him, Ulzii becomes his younger broth­er and sister’s sole provider – a respon­si­bil­i­ty that becomes impos­si­ble to bal­ance with his studies.

Purevdash draws on the hard­ships of life in Ulaanbaatar’s yurt dis­trict to empha­sise the grav­i­ty of Ulzii’s dilem­ma. Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Davaanyam Del­ger­jar­gal makes the unfor­giv­ing Mon­go­lian win­ter inescapable by cap­tur­ing the snow-laden plains around tent city through a pletho­ra of wide shots, many of which tran­si­tion into close­ups of a tense Ulzii, unable to pur­chase coal to warm his tent.

When his younger broth­er expect­ed­ly falls ill and Ulzii is unable to afford med­i­cine, the extent of their des­ti­tu­tion becomes unmis­tak­able. The film’s potent script is fur­ther bol­stered by its impres­sive score, which jux­ta­pos­es melan­cholic arrange­ments from the morin khu­ur with the per­turb­ing inten­si­ty of tra­di­tion­al throat singing to cap­ture the enor­mi­ty of Ulzii’s strug­gle with­out rely­ing on the con­trivance of most com­ing-of-age narratives.

While Purevdash explores the cycle of pover­ty through a ter­rif­ic script, she does tend to lean towards some time­worn sto­ry­telling devices. Scenes depict­ing Ulzii’s apti­tude for physics are con­stant­ly jux­ta­posed with the ghast­li­ness of his cir­cum­stances. While this poignant­ly depicts the cycle of pover­ty, it also results in If Only I Could Hiber­nate becom­ing hack­neyed in its sec­ond act, when it poignant­ly explores the cru­el­ty of their sor­ry lot and lit­tle else, tak­ing the edge away from an oth­er­wise-relent­less final act.

The film also embod­ies uncom­mon depth in explor­ing tra­di­tion and mas­culin­i­ty and how the two inter­twine. Ulzii lam­basts his younger broth­er for shiv­er­ing in bed. ​“Only girls get cold,” he says. He rejects sup­port from a teacher and refus­es to allow his sis­ter to sup­port him finan­cial­ly. Ulti­mate­ly, the toll this endur­ing ordeal takes on Ulzii becomes too much, and his world starts to unrav­el in the film’s final act, dur­ing which mel­low and iso­lat­ing fixed medi­um shots that define the film start tran­si­tion­ing into unre­lent­ing sequences, shot with hand-held cam­eras and with only Ulzii in focus. What fol­lows is an intense and befit­ting con­clu­sion to a for­mi­da­ble debut that cap­tures the indomitabil­i­ty of the human spir­it amid even the most chal­leng­ing circumstances.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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