On top of the world in an Eastern Western

OneWorld UK

By Daniel Nelson

To describe Kekexili (Mountain Patrol) as a film about wildlife conservation is akin to saying Hamlet is about a disturbed son. It just doesn't convey the force of the drama.

Kekexili is a 40,000 square kilometre wilderness on the Tibetan plateau - so high and so stark that some of the crew resigned, the others suffered altitude sickness and seven actors in a scene that involved wading across a river ended up receiving emergency treatment in a local hospital. Finally, writer and director Lu Chan was also taken to hospital and connected to an intravenous drip.

The area, the largest animal reserve in China, is home to many rare species, including the chinu, or Tibetan antelope. Antelope numbers plummeted from one million to 10,000 as poachers hunted them almost to extinction. The killing was driven by demand for shatoosh scarves.

A group of local people tried to halt the butchery by setting up the Kekexili Mountain Patrol, a volunteer force hampered by the vast and inhospitable terrain, the murderous ruthlessness of the poachers and local poverty.

A Beijing journalist comes to report on the death of patrol volunteers and on rumours that they are themselves selling pelts. Telling the story through the eyes of a journalist is an old Hollywood device, and the battle between poachers and patrolmen, against a dramatic scenic backdrop, has the feel of a Western, with clearly delineated goodies and baddies. There is even an early-scene hint of a romantic interest between the journalist and the patrol leaders daughter - a hint that would have been hard to follow up in a tale in which women do not figure at all.

But Kekexili is not Arizona, so the way the confrontation plays out is vividly different. There are more deaths by quicksand and exposure than shoot-outs in the corral; a chase scene takes place in such thin air that the two men can hardly walk, let alone run, and both collapse from lack of oxygen; virtually all the goodies die, while the baddies walk off into the sunset - or at least, into a snowstorm.

For British eyes, I imagine the excitement and fascination of watching the drama unfold is like seeing Nanook of the North - a story of life and love in the actual Arctic - in 1922. Nanook, the daddy of documentary making, provided a cinematic feast by opening a window on a world previously unseen by viewers.

In another way, too, the two films are closer in approach than at first sight. Nanook was a documentary, but its narrative was arranged by the director: Kekexili is a feature film, but the story is based on real events.

Those events give the film the coda which lifts it from rawness, violence and defeat: the final credits explain that the journalist - whose life is spared by the poacher chief - returns to Beijing to write the story that shocks his readers and contributes to the government's decision to declare Kekexili a game reserve, giving some protection to the antelope. The animals, the credits say, are now on the increase.

* Kekexili is showing at the ICA on 2 and 5 July