The Wolves Always Come at Night

Seamlessly blending documentary and fiction, The Wolves Always Come at Night is a timely reminder of the sometimes tenuous foundations of the places we call home. Born to generations of herders in Mongolia’s immense Bayankhongor region, young couple Daava (Davaasuren Dagvasuren) and Zaya (Otgonzaya Dashzeveg) are raising their four children as they were brought up: with an intimate connection to the land and the animals they share their lives with.

After an unexpectedly severe sandstorm leaves a devastating impact in its wake, Daava and Zaya must make a once-unthinkable decision that will irrevocably change their family’s lives. With herding now untenable, they relocate to the city for work, as hundreds of thousands have done before them. For Daava, this includes selling his beloved stallion whose absence leaves a lingering hole in his heart. Once in Ulaanbaatar, the family sets up in the ger district, a sprawling yurt settlement on the city’s outskirts where most of the former herders now live, and where overpopulation and pollution thrive.

Director Gabrielle Brady lays bare the emotional ruptures of climate change and urban migration on Mongolian herders, told through the experiences of one family. Dagvasuren and Dashzeveg, also credited as the film’s co-writers, are revelatory. The quiet heartbreak they endure is etched on their faces as they drift ever further from the herding life and culture they deeply love, yearning for a day they can return to their home and hoping, likely in vain, that it doesn’t cease to exist.

JASON RYLE

Content advisory: mature themes