An academically gifted teenager abandons his own prospects to keep his family afloat in If Only I Could Hibernate, Mongolia’s first-ever entry at the Cannes Film Festival. Bowing in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, the Mongolian-French-Swiss-Qatari co-production showcases the solid and unshowy direction of Japan-educated Zoljargal Purevdash, as well as powerful performances from its young cast.
A sturdy social realist drama that rarely veers into melodramatic or over-expositional territory, the film is a sensitive and sobering character study of a teenager torn between his ambitions and his reality. It’s also a subtle yet pointed critique about how well-intentioned Good Samaritans sometimes fail to understand how below-the-breadline classes decline to dream by dint of their birth – something that Ken Loach, for one, might readily approve, aware of the ironies within.
While the middle-class, private-schooled Loach (who is in Cannes to present his 15th competition entry, The Old Oak) might readily stand in solidarity alongside If Only I Could Hibernate’s protagonists, Purevdash actually was one of them. Her major character is inspired by the 32-year-old filmmaker’s own life. A prodigious student growing up in a working-class tent city in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, she worked hard to attain a scholarship which eventually allowed her to study filmmaking in Japan.
Purevdash’s sort-of on-screen proxy is Ulzii (Battsooj Uurtsaikh), a high-school student boasting a terrific talent in physics. His teacher (Batzorig Sukhbaatar) spots his potential and recommends he apply for the upcoming national physics Olympiad. Though tempted, the boy refuses, and we soon get to know why. Hailing from a single-parent, four-child family living in Ulaanbaatar’s “yurt district” – a sprawling settlement in which people live in traditional Mongolian white-canvas camps – the family has money problems. Ulzii can’t count on his irregularly employed, heavy-drinking mother (Ganchimeg Sandagdorj) to bring home enough to buy coal to heat up their yurt, let alone the sizeable application fee for the competition.
His teacher somehow manages to sign him up anyway, and Ulzii dares to dream as he attends an orientation at a posh private school downtown. He’s impressed by the “floors that shine”, but most importantly by a huge billboard advertising the big-name foreign universities their graduates went on to study in. But his flights of fancy crash when his mother announces the family will be upping stakes to live in the countryside, where she has a job lined up gathering pine nuts. Ulzii refuses to go, but eventually they call a truce: Mom and the youngest brother will leave for the provinces, while Ulzii stays in the city with two of his school-age siblings.
Unsurprisingly, his fortunes spiral forever downwards, leading him to ever more extreme (and illegal) measures to put food on the table and fuel to the rickety heating stove. Immersing the viewer in the young man’s tragic descent into utter desperation, Purevdash’s screenplay is nuanced in depicting his struggle and making his questionable decisions completely understandable. First-timer Uurtsaikh’s barnstorming performance plays a huge part in making the whole narrative work, like the two other non-pro child actors who play his siblings. A scene in which his kid sister (Nominjiguur Tsend) does her part earning some money is especially heartbreaking.
On the other hand, If Only I Could Hibernate is also demanding viewing for the audience, most of whom – at least outside Mongolia – are probably from higher social classes than Ulzii’s family. The teacher’s inability to understand the boy’s predicament and why he drifts away from his well-meaning tutelage, for example, suggests that people are sometimes blamed for merely being poor.
Interestingly, Purevdash includes a brief shot of people demonstrating against air pollution in Ulaanbaatar. It’s an enactment of real-life protests in which eco-friendly Mongolian urbanites railed against “yurt district” residents who continue to burn coal and cause pollution in their part of the city – a “let them get central heating” sentiment which highlights the class schisms in Mongolian society today.
It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it (and unsubtitled) moment in the film, which goes to show Purevdash’s penchant for subtle criticism of things she obviously feels strongly about. This goes for the other instances in which class inequality comes into play: we get to see Ulzii’s run-in with an aunt living in a well-appointed apartment in a highrise, or the flats he visits when he helps his neighbour to do delivery runs of fresh meat. During these exchanges, Purevdash quietly suggests the hypocrisy of this emergent bourgeoisie: they hold the poor in disdain, but continue to rely on them for making their lives run smoothly.
The director rarely, if ever, dabbles in the merest hint of exoticism in the film’s representation of Mongolian or working class life. This is very much thanks to Davaanyam Delgerjargal’s solid camerawork and Binderiya Munkhbat’s production design of Ulzii’s yurt, the encampment in general, and the few urban settings the teenager visits. Alexandra Strauss’s editing keeps things precise and concise, allowing If Only I Could Hibernate to rouse the viewer into thinking about the complex dynamics behind people trying to break out of their imposed social stations.
Director, screenwriter: Zoljargal Purevdash
Cast: Batmandakh Batchuluun, Ganchimeg Sandagdorj, Batsaikhan Battulga
Producers: Frédéric Corvez, Maéva Savinien, Zoljargal Purevdash
Director of photography: Davaanyam Delgerjargal
Editor: Alexandra Strauss
Production designer: Binderiya Munkhbat
Music composer: Johanni Curtet
Sound designer: Zendmene-Erdene Ichinnorov
Production companies: Urban Factory, Amygdala Films
World sales: Urban Sales
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Un Certain Regard)
In Mongolian
98 minutes
