Mongolian Voice

The clip above is from the Mongolian film, Khadak. A portrait of the overlay of a numeric grid (economy) onto a nomadic people. But in Khadak, the grid is broken. The protagonist and the woman above lead the transition, undermining the coal industry and all it has taken from them, returning their community to what is familiar and sustaining—home. But they did not do so because they intended to; there was no plan. He found her buried under coal in a train car, coal she was stealing for survival and trade. And he only understood his grandfather’s silence once the coal mine owners moved the elderly man into a hi-rise. But there they both listened. They did not discuss what was happening. They knew what was occurring. They let it open before them, and then it was closed.