CAPSULE: The Eagle Huntress (2016, Dir. Otto Bell)

Aisholpan, a thirteen year old Kazakh girl, takes up training to be an eagle huntress under her father. As you’d expect, she faces a fair amount of opposition; in twelve generations of eagle hunters, there’s never been a huntress. But Aisholpan has pluck and she’s nabbed a top-notch eaglet to accompany her on her journey.

Director Otto Bell goes hard at the Mongolian landscape, setting Aisholpan’s impressive human achievements against some stunning backdrops but even with the drama to hand (physical and narrative), The Eagle Huntress plods. Any sense of scope is flattened out by pedestrian storytelling, with participants set up to talk through scenes (almost certainly re-enacted) reality television style. What little space there is to get swallowed up in wonder is crammed with unnecessary voice over by Daisy Ridley.

Strangely, any real sense of Aisholpan’s achievement is downplayed by the film. Scenes of her training are exceptionally brief and her ongoing push for legitimacy, which takes the form of a winter fox hunt, is barely contextualised. We’re told it is important but it all feels too manufactured and too inconsequential to care about by film’s end. Which is odd because it really shouldn’t, especially with someone as exceptional as Aisholpan as its focus.

This one should have been given more free air.

★★★

Trailer: