The Eagle Huntress [DVD]

Such an amazing story of how male dominated traditions need to be challenged and once that happens, the awesome potential and future outcomes enabling those who have been ignored, typecast and almost set aside, then being more able to flourish and take their rightful place in society.

This film is absolutely amazing. It's about a young Kazakh girl who longs to become an Eagle Huntress - something that only men are allowed to aspire to in her culture. However, her father is rather unconventional and as she's the eldest child and very much her father's daughter, he treats her as he would do a son, and lets her do all the things he does or essentially that only boys would do in that particular culture - riding horses, hunting, etc.She actually captures her own Eagle chick whilst her father lowers her down a dangerous mountain precipice on spindly-looking ropes. All the while, the mother Eagle is hovering scarily close and the girl, Aisholpan has her work cut out to capture the chick before she returns to the nest.She lovingly rears the chick at home, hand feeding it with meat speared on a stick and sets out with her father to train it to hunt - spending days outdoors in freezing conditions that only men are supposed to be able to endure. Her aim is to train it up and enter a yearly competition, again, only usually entered by men or youths. Surprisingly, although she is female and this kind of behaviour is not usually supported in her culture, she is not actually forbidden from entering the competition and goes ahead, with the encouragement of her father (and mother - who thinks she's very daring and outrageous but is ultimately proud of her).I won't give away the ending but the cynical elders, despite having proof that some women can do what men do, remain unmoved in their opinions and insist that Aisholpan will ultimately have to marry and behave in a way that is becoming to a woman of their culture. What they fail to understand is that she is one of a kind and not all Kazakh girls will want to become Eagle Huntresses, as is indicated when Aisholpan is seen with her school friends in the weekly boarding school she attends. They are all terrified at the thought of handling an Eagle so I think the Kazakh nomadic culture is safe from sensational new ideas for the time being! No-one seems to think the use of motor vehicles or mobile phones is counter cultural though - just the thought that their masculinity has been undermined by a thirteen year old girl whose skill and daring puts most modern European children to shame. Asking a UK teenager to touch a piece of raw meat would probably send them into floods of tears and refusal, never mind asking them to feed it to an Eagle!Watch and learn! Fantastic scenery, gorgeous costumes and stunningly beautiful people who have a calm inner strength and a serenity that belies their tough and unforgiving living conditions.

This should be required viewing for every girl of around 12 and under in the West to show what girls can actually do when they are not fed a load of BS involving smart phones, the Kardashians, and the Western idea of 'feminism'. This girl, about 12 or 13, I would say, decides that she wants to follow in the footsteps of her father and grandfather and become an Eagle Hunter of Mongolia (although she wants to become a doctor in later life, she adds), which, as it sounds, centres on hunting various animals with a bloody great Golden Eagle on your arm whilst riding a relatively tiny horse. So, she climbs an ice-covered mountain in the Altai mountain range of Mongolia to capture a suitable wild three month old Golden Eagle, trains it from scratch, and then rides off in winter on a small horse in minus 40 temperatures across the Mongolian steppes, and unleashes (literally) her bird on various unsuspecting foxes. All of this is done with a beautiful smile and a sense of artless joy at being with her bird (which is bigger than she is, of course), her father (who is completely supportive of her ambitions despite girls not exactly encouraged to become Eagle Hunters) and family (also supportive), and at one with her surroundings, without - as far as I could detect - any complaint whatsoever. She and the family have no phones, no TV, no central heating, no newspapers, no laptop, no internet, nothing really that many people especially of the younger generation think it is essential to life, but appear to be absolutely happy. Aside from the eagle hunting, she is a girly girl, who takes great pleasure in buying a pretty white hair ribbon on a very rare trip to a local town that she is visiting with her father because she wants to enter the Eagle Festival competition (I won't give away what happens here). Having competed in the Festival, in which many of the more staid of the Eagle Hunters regard her presence as an affront and say that the true worth of an Eagle Hunter can only be established when the hunter goes on long-range extended winter hunts, she does precisely that. Absolutely great, in short.

This is a fabulous depiction of the process of capturing a wild Eagle and the respect shown to the bird by his handlers. I loved how the bond of trust slowly developed between him and his huntress. Of course, the sadness of another creature losing its life is part of it but, the bird kills quickly. Or appears to. When they all went off to the annual competition... well... no spoilers. Dad is amazing. He was fully supportive of his daughters dream and even the die hard elders lost their scepticism in the end.A thoroughly engrossing watch. Full of wild, majestic scenery and the beauty of the bird.I loved it all. And will watch over and over.The best bit...? When they honour the right of the bird to regain his freedom. And give him back to the skies and cliffs. If I could give 10 stars I would.