Vans present a lot of the outright shade in “Colors of White Rock.” Rolling metallic rectangles in pillarbox pink, royal blue and bottle inexperienced, they manifestly conflict with the dun khaki expanses of the Gobi Desert as they roar down its lonesome highways — the encompassing sands so huge and empty as to make the automobiles seem like matchbox vehicles in lengthy shot. Their route is easy and linear, as they ferry a great deal of Mongolian coal previous the Chinese language border; there’s not a lot risk of getting misplaced. However after a number of years on this beat, uncommon feminine trucker Maikhuu feels adrift anyway: Separated from her household again dwelling and largely ignored by her male friends on the highway, hers is usually a spartan, solitary life, by way of which Khoroldorj Choijoovanchig‘s spectacular documentary observes a altering nationwide tradition.
A standout premiere in Tribeca’s documentary competitors that has since additionally performed at Sheffield DocFest, Choijoovanchig’s concise however expansive function has the steadiness of human intimacy and environmental curiosity can energy a nonfiction crowdpleaser — and may see it journey a lot additional on the competition circuit. So far as distribution goes, one hopes that “Colors of White Rock” sees some theatrical play, if solely to do justice to its director-DP’s sparsely spectacular taking pictures of this harsh however stunning panorama. In sure hovering drone photographs, the Gobi’s dry, greige sprawl seems to be like nothing a lot because the floor of one other planet, at the very least till it’s disrupted by snaking artifical infrastructure and drab gentle business.
Maikhuu recollects when it was even much less developed. “As a child, there were only yurts here,” she says, looking on the desert that encircles White Rock — the small coal-mining settlement and transit hub, sarcastically shrouded in darkish mining mud, the place she lives between driving stints. Her wistfulness is tinged with guilt. She is aware of she’s a part of the system stripping the area of treasured pure sources and taking them throughout the border; the land can not maintain this livelihood endlessly.
However trucking pays, in methods different jobs haven’t. A single mom, Maikhuu beforehand labored as a hairdresser and cab driver in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, however couldn’t make sufficient to offer for herself and her youngsters — who now dwell along with her sister within the metropolis. She goals of residing along with her united household in a developed nation the place work is less complicated to return by, however stoically accepts her lot: “Everyone’s hopes are different, depending on their situation,” she sighs. On the wheel, she retains her thoughts unsentimentally on the job, which is fraught with risks for the inattentive: The roads are slim, and accidents are frequent.
Confidently investing in her human topic as a consultant of an evolving lifestyle for Mongolian ladies particularly, Choijoovanchig movies her over a interval of six years, darting between totally different phases — the COVID interval, throughout which her work life is drastically altered, throws a transparent wrench in movie’s timeline, whereas journeys dwelling to go to her youngsters brilliant contrasting gentle and pleasure to proceedings, displaying a far softer facet of Maikhuu. In any other case, her powerful, implacable demeanor is an expert necessity in a patriarchal sphere nonetheless hostile to feminine drivers, and in a tradition the place working ladies should nonetheless bear lots of scrutiny, suspicion and stigma: Her younger daughter is mortified by a rumor circulating in school that her mom is a intercourse employee.
Maikhuu’s frank, characterful voiceover narration provides the movie a story consistency at the same time as its construction zigs and zags, although not all the pieces is shared: “Colors of White Rock” hints at an until, much less remoted off-road existence for its heroine, not least because it poignantly follows her by way of one other being pregnant, the daddy unidentified. In opposition to such seismic private developments, the simultaneous grown and depletion of White Rock and its environs occur at a much more gradual tempo, however don’t go ignored by Choijoovanchig and his affected person digicam. Swirling sands don’t move by way of an hourglass on this movie, however they mark time simply the identical.
