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The Eagle Huntress

A girl dreams of chasing her eagle-training, fox-hunting dream, and a filmmaker turns her tale into a standard documentary.
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When The Eagle Huntress begins, 13-year-old Aisholpan Nurgaiv is a girl with a dream: to become the first female in her Kazakh family to hunt foxes using a trained eagle. It’s a generations-old tradition her father Rys and his father before him have kept alive, and though custom usually dictates that boys are trained in the field, that won’t stop this eager student from pursuing her passion. So it is that she hones the skills required, captures an eaglet, readies her bird for the task, and sets out to show her prowess first at Mongolia’s annual Golden Eagle Festival, and then out in the wild. By virtue of the fact that her tale has been captured on film, it’s not difficult to see where Aisholpan’s path is headed. Her can-do quest for achievement is movie’s main drawcard — but the way it has been assembled into a documentary is also its chief problem. 

Helming his first film, director Otto Bell happily adheres to a template that’s well worn in factual content, and in staged reality television too. Narration by Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens’ Daisy Ridley (one of the feature’s executive producers) sets the scene and intermittently interjects with added information, making plain the broader aim of championing Aisholpan’s battle of the sexes in an arena usually monopolised by men. It’s a worthy topic teeming with potency and relevance, but Bell never trusts the details to make their own statement. Perhaps that’s due to his fondness for positing that Aisholpan stands out in her desire to become an eagle huntress — complete with vocal opposition from village elders insisting that a woman’s place is to make tea, and doubting that she could withstand cold climes — though other reports claim otherwise. 

Cue the expected approach to Aisholpan’s life, as shot over the course of a year. The film features glimpses of her ordinary existence, spending weekdays at boarding school and weekends at home with her nomadic family; intertwines interviews waxing insightful about her preferred pastime; and takes to the Altai mountains to watch her in action. So far, so standard — but cinematographer Simon Niblett’s (Adventures of the Penguin King) luck in always being in the right place to capture the bird’s flight, and segments such as Aisholpan painting her nails and beaming about her ponytails as a symbol of femininity, combine to leave the impression that much of what occurs on screen happens solely for the documentary. While that mightn’t be the case, as Bell contends, the movie still can’t escape its air of manipulation.

An applauding anthem by Sia in the closing credits and an overbearing score throughout that endeavours to ramp up the tension leave the same impression, with the latter helping get to the heart of one of the troubled aspects of the film. Other than scenes involving capturing the eagle on a rocky cliff, competing, and witnessing Aisholpan and her feathered friend hunting foxes, there’s little inherent drama to her tale. Naysayers exist, but can’t stop her progress. Her father is overjoyed with pride, the rest of her family is supportive, she’s able to enter the contest easily and the crowd cheers heartily. Alas, that doesn’t make for suspenseful viewing. Of course, The Eagle Huntress isn’t the first documentary to shape its contents to obtain a desired outcome; however in doing so, it doesn’t do its subject justice.

Thankfully, Aisholpan provides a warm screen presence; indeed, courtesy of her infectious enthusiasm, she’s as engaging a sight to behold as the harsh but gorgeous scenery she’s surrounded with. Experiencing her enthusiasm and watching her growing bond with her eagle helps The Eagle Huntress to somewhat soar beyond its structural and stylistic struggles, resulting in a rousing effort filled with inspiration, yet told in a thoroughly routine fashion.

Rating: 2 ½ stars out of 5

The Eagle Huntress
Director: Otto Bell
UK | Mongolia | USA, 2016, 87 mins

Release date: March 16
Distributor: Sony
Rated: G

Sarah Ward
About the Author
Sarah Ward is a freelance film critic, arts and culture writer, and film festival organiser. She is the Australia-based critic for Screen International, a film reviewer and writer for ArtsHub, the weekend editor and a senior writer for Concrete Playground, a writer for the Goethe-Institut Australien’s Kino in Oz, and a contributor to SBS, SBS Movies and Flicks Australia. Her work has been published by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Junkee, FilmInk, Birth.Movies.Death, Lumina, Senses of Cinema, Broadsheet, Televised Revolution, Metro Magazine, Screen Education and the World Film Locations book series. She is also the editor of Trespass Magazine, a film and TV critic for ABC radio Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, and has worked with the Brisbane International Film Festival, Queensland Film Festival, Sydney Underground Film Festival and Melbourne International Film Festival. Follow her on Twitter: @swardplay