At its heart a simple story of a girl and her eagle, the
charming documentary “The Eagle Huntress” follows Aisholpan,
a 13-year-old Mongolian girl, as she seeks to become the first female eagle
hunter in her Kazakh family. She faces an uphill battle, as director Otto Bell
shows in brief interviews with the elders of her people expressing their
disapproval, maintaining that girls are too “fragile” to take part in the long
tradition of eagle hunting (although it appears the film is somewhat
downplaying what’s actually a
long legacy of woman eagle hunters). But thankfully Aisholpan’s
family, including her father, Nurgaiv — himself a
well-respected eagle hunter — remains completely supportive.
Nurgaiv assists his daughter in
capturing a fledgling eagle from its precariously-perched mountain nest, and Aisholpan is well on her way. She begins to bond with her
eagle, teaching the magnificent creature to obey her commands and becomes a
faithful companion. Though the two will form a close connection, custom
requires that after seven years the bird be released back into the wild.
When Aisholpan expresses a desire
to participate in the annual eagle festival in the provincial capital of Olgii, where participants show off their (and their birds’)
hunting skill and prowess, we follow along as the remarkably self-assured young
girl trains for competition. This arc lends the film the structure of a sports
movie, and Bell melds it with the feel of a nature documentary, getting a lift
from narration by British actress Daisy Ridley (“Star Wars: Episode VII — The
Force Awakens”) and the beautiful, swooping camerawork of cinematographer Simon
Niblett.
Aside from those tsk-tsking elders,
there isn’t much in the way of conflict to the narrative, but the simplified
nature of the story works. When partnered with a kid-friendly G-rating (there
is a brief scene involving the sacrifice of a lamb and an extended sequence
hunting a fox, but both are shot in way that minimize the sight of actual
blood) and an appealing girl power message, “The Eagle Huntress” makes a
wonderful entry point for parents seeking to introduce a young child to the
world of documentary filmmaking.
This article appears in Nov 30 – Dec 6, 2016.
