How poor is poor? In my country, there are people who are poor who live in houses. Many of them. There are others who have no income whatsoever and live in the streets. Sometimes, society helps them out. Sometimes … less. Today, we focus on POOR. I mean really, really poor. Suburban Mongolia. It’s cold, it’s destitute. It ain’t gettin’ a hand up from anything government-related. It’s a place where the only available work is illegal and the family dog freezes to death in the cold.
Teenaged Ulzii (Battsooj Uurtsaikh) is a genius (a Mongolian Good Will Hunting, fwiw) … for all the good that will do him. He, mom, and three sibs live in a one-room hut in outer Ulaaaaaaanbaaaaaaatar. Ulzii’s advanced brain gives him a path upwards. And yet, he literally cannot afford to be brilliant. What Ulzii wants is to ply his gift for science into a physics scholarship at the University of Mongolia (home of the Fightin’ Huns) or, you know, whatever school seems to be dangling this ungettable get.
Meanwhile, single mom is an unemployed drunk. None of his siblings can yet pull their own. And they’ve all had to grow up a little fast. The baby is given to a neighbor who can care for her better. The younger sibs waste their candy money on coal so maybe they won’t freeze tonight. After drowning in her inability to provide, mom eventually gets a job … away. This means she can leave and spend her free 
money on alcohol. The kids are on their own.
Social services ain’t exactly happenin’. Work ain’t exactly happenin’. Ulzii has a pretty good temper on him. Geez, he’s a teenage genius forced to take care of his family; you’d be angry, too. Carefully weighing his options between the national physics competition, which could potentially carry him away from poverty, and the duty he’s been saddled with, Ulzii chooses to drop out of school to make squat felling trees illegally. It’s a Hell of a life, ain’t it?
If Only I Could Hibernate is a depressing film. And it is completely wasted on people without empathy. It wasn’t made for an American audience, of course, but, hey, you think it couldn’t happen here? HAHAHAHA! Show me any group of Americans who “hate entitlements” and I’ll show you a place where something similar is going to happen. Written and directed by professional tongue-twister Zoljargal Purevdash, If Only I Could Hibernate is a professional tale of woe. Is it enough to move any needle in any community that could do something about it? I doubt it; it’s a moving film, but not a great film. All I can say is I’m glad I’m not Mongolian. I don’t have a Mongolian beef here. Our poor are better off than theirs … but not nearly as much as we like to imagine.
A young genius, taking his licks
Just surviving in the Mongolian stix
His troubles: list, laundry
Yet come down to one quandary
He’s too old for cute and too young to turn tricks
Not Rated, 96 Minutes
Director: Zoljargal Purevdash
Writer: Zoljargal Purevdash
Genre: This couldn’t happen here … cuz we don’t give a shit about science
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The empathetic
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who do not realize their politics create situations like this
