As we creep towards the opening credits, Desert Dream fades to dusty yellow before it fades to black. If you are ever in East Asia in the spring/summer and notice the people wearing surgical masks, don’t be worried about a returning SARS outbreak. Be worried about yellow dust. Yellow dust storms originate primarily from the deserts of Mongolia, northern China, and Kazakhstan thanks to an erosion of barren land similar to that of the Dust Bowl that occurred in the U.S. in the 1930′s. These storms end up carrying pollutants in their wake to cities halfway around the world, exposing neighboring countries to lung-damaging particles, hence the surgical masks. In China, as Patrick Alleyn notes in his article “The Chinese Dust Bowl” in the October 2007 issue of the Canadian monthly The Walrus, besides government ‘ecological refugee’ relocation programs, efforts are being taken to renew the land to a fertile state to hold off further erosion, such as planting a Great Green Wall of China to protect the land from wind, or fining shepherds who allow their flocks to graze indiscriminately. But Zhang Lu’s film is void of such collective political action in Mongolia. In Desert Dream (Mongolian title – Hyazgar), one man is the Johnny Appleseed of stories that make up the Mongolian section of The Steppes. That man is Hungai (Osor Bat-Ulzii).

Desert Dream When Hungai’s daughter’s illness demands his wife take her to the capital of Mongolia, Ulan Batar, he is left with just his saplings and the few familiar faces that pass through his little nook of The Steppes. But soon some new faces appear at his door, two North Korean refugees, pre-teen Chong-no (Shin Dong-ho) and his mother (Suh Jung). Slowly these two get to know each other and trust each other as they assist Hungai in his tree-planting, cow-milking, dung-gathering, and goat-birthing. Although the dialogue explicates some themes, the majority of the plot is supported by silent actions since only two of the three in this triad can verbally communicate with one another. (But such linguistic limitations do not stop Chong-no’s mother from clearly informing Hungai to keep his grimy hands off her body.) Such persistent silence enhances the effect of the stories told in the folk songs sung in Desert Dream.

Each Zhang film I’ve seen depicts lost characters seeking something and someone to hold on to, only to be disappointed by eventual betrayal. Desert Dream follows a similar path as it spins us around as we seek an elusive holding place, which presents the viewer with a tiny fraction of the disorientation experienced by many of the refugees of the world. The film is slow-paced, taking time out to appreciate the vast expanse of space making this film perfect for the cinema, and leaving me disappointed that my only option for viewing it was my computer screen.

As my friend Brian Darr has noted over at his blog Hell on Frisco Bay, the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival is lately staying loyal to particular directors and I’m happy they found fidelity with director Zhang Lu, or otherwise who knows when I might have had a chance to check out Desert Dream after its screening in official competition at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival, even if that chance is only on my computer via the privileges of a reviewer’s copy. Zhang’s decision to focus on the displaced, be it North Koreans in China (Grain In Ear) or in Mongolia, is a welcomed and refreshing presence on the world cinema stage. Much is made about the money lost in South Korean cinema in 2007, but not enough is made about the other losses, those films deserving of greater exposure that stay in the film festival ghetto. But in this case, the marginalization of Zhang’s films in theaters parallels the lives of his characters. Perhaps the fact that Zhang is a third-generation Korean-Chinese explains why he empathizes so much with the status of his characters. Thankfully, as Tom Giammarco informs me, he has two more films set for release in South Korea. It appears Zhang will continue on with his work like that of the characters of Desert Dream. In spite of the obstacles, each continues to walk onward in the face of all the dust in the wind that seeks to impede their progress. Occasionally each finds oases of beauty along the way.

Source:Koreanfilm