The short film “Mountain Cat” is a co-production between France and Mongolia. The coming-of-age story by director Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir has already enjoyed a remarkable festival career. It was part of the official selection of Cannes, ran in Toronto and now recently in Busan, where it won the Sonje Award. At Edimotion, the film festival in Cologne, which focuses on editing and montage, it ran in the competition for best editing with four other short films.
Composed of static as well as moving images, which capture the events partly very close and partly from a safe distance, “Mountain Cat” provides a brief but intense insight into the emotional life of a young woman. She is brought to a shaman by her mother and this is, apparently, not for the first time. The girl is sick and the mother hopes that they will receive hope and support from the shaman.
Reluctantly the young woman bows to the ritual. Her skepticism towards the “grandfather”, who speaks of his supernatural inspirations with imposing masks and gimmicky noises, can be felt all the time. She holds herself back, does not want to disappoint her mother. Only at the end she is tempted to a small outburst. She meets the shaman, who in reality is hardly older than her, and allows herself, for a moment, to express her displeasure.
The editing by Madlen Sieghartsleitner underlines the girl's feelings. The calm that lies over the pictures is only superficial. Fear, anger and powerlessness bubble underneath. The film alternates between longer shots and short close-ups. In the narrowness of the shaman's tent, the impressions overturn; outside, the vastness of the landscape comes into its own.
Without much explanation, the director manages to tell her story sensitively. At the same time she transfers the fascination for the shamanic ritual, which is the focus of the short film, to the viewer. A long feature film is planned, which will take a closer look at the figure of the shaman. “Mountain Cat” therefore serves as a successful 14-minute foretaste, which will arouse curiosity about the sequel, but stands also for itself.
