Eagle Huntress * * *

 Eagle Huntress is about a 13 year old girl in Mongolia who wants to be an Eagle Huntress, so she becomes one.  

Aisholpan doing the Eagle Rock!

     I really don’t know why everyone has gone nuts about it.  It’s like some people assume that a young girl achieving a dream in Mongolia must be a lot harder than a young girl achieving a dream in a western country (a bit culturally condescending).   But the irony is, if you really consider this documentary, there is a lot of evidence to the contrary: Her parents are immensely supportive, she is free to enter competitions.  She wins because the judges are fair and impartial. Really her only detractors are comments from  a few grumpy old men who have nothing to do with her.

     The documentary asserts she was the first female eagle hunter ever, but apparently much evidence has since come out to suggest that is simply not true. That is not to suggest it was a walk in the park for Aisholpan. She had to work, the same as anybody who wants to achieve anything has to work.  She had to train the bird, and before that she had to go catch her own eaglet by climbing down a cliff face to raid an eagles nest.  A true eagle hunter gets their own eagle to raise. They don’t just go and get one from the pet shop.

    The best of this are the beautiful landscapes, the pictures of the eagle/s in flight and catching prey, the insight into the nomadic lifestyle of eagle hunters (6 months in a tent and 6 months in a house) and the love and warmth in her own family and the school she attends.  

   It’s a sweet little film with some pretty good footage.  Though I found the cameras being in the right place at the right time somewhat questionable, which is okay I suppose. After all, most “as it happened”moments in nature documentaries are set ups, because animals aren’t very cooperative, especially if they're going to be attacked by an eagle.

   It has been marketed as a rare and unique experience, but it’s no better than many another documentary you’ll catch on television, which makes it pretty good in its own right, but no big deal. Though I must say I loved the slide show of stills at the end of Aisholpan with her eagle, they were beautiful photographs.