The Gobi Desert was once a beautiful, unspoilt place, where nomadic tribes lived and farmed in an existence unchanged for centuries. But underneath the sands lie vast, tempting mineral riches. The demand for coal in nearby China has changed these lands beyond recognition, and the new, vast sprawling mines have led to a seemingly endless line of trucks transporting coal in one direction, and then returning for more. Amongst the drivers is Maikhuu, unusual in that she is one of the very few women doing this job.
She was actually born in the desert, and herded sheep as a child, but is now forced to drive trucks for money. She doesn’t enjoy the work, and wants to quit, but the pressures of bringing up children, with her as the sole wage earner, lead her to return to truck driving when she would rather not. This recent exploitation of the desert has created an economic boom, but at a cost to the wildlife, increasing drought and the obvious loss of a unique way of life.
Added to this, are the terrible conditions that the drivers have to work under, with dangerous, even fatal accidents being common, and with no real protection for the drivers. Cutting through all this is a film documenting Maikhuu’s daily struggle, while her sister raises her kids in the increasingly polluted city of Ulaanbaatar. Director Khoroldorj Choijooanchig travelled with her, capturing the hardship she endures, to make a quite remarkable film.
Maikhuu herself dreams of being a trucker in the US, but that would mean leaving her children. The cinematography powerfully depicts the industrialised destruction of a once beautiful place, with a sound design and score by Gael Rakotodrabe, perfectly depicting the harshness of life in what is becoming an industrial wasteland.
