The track provides much of the overt color of “Colors of White Rock.” A pillarbox red, royal blue, and bottle green metal rectangle roars down that lonely highway, colliding with the vast expanses of dun khaki color of the Gobi Desert—so vast and empty of sand that it looks like a matchbox car from a distance. Their route is simple and straightforward, transporting cargoes of Mongolian coal by ferry across the Chinese border. There’s not much chance of getting lost. But after several years of living like this, Mikey, a rare female truck driver, feels adrift. Separated from her family in her hometown and largely ignored by her male companions on the road, her life is often simple and lonely, through which Horoldorj Choijovanchig’s striking documentary observes the changing national culture.
Choijobanchigu’s concise but expansive feature, which had an outstanding premiere in Tribeca’s Documentary Competition and subsequently screened at Sheffield Dockfest, is sure to gain further traction on the festival circuit, with its balance of human intimacy and environmental curiosity making it a nonfiction crowd-pleaser. As for distribution, one might hope that The Colors of White Rock would be shown as a play, if only to appreciate the director and cinematographer’s sparse and spectacular cinematography of this harsh but beautiful landscape. In certain soaring drone shots, the Gobi’s arid, gray expanses look like the surface of another planet, at least until they’re ravaged by meandering man-made infrastructure and drab light industry.
Mikeu remembers a time when it hadn’t developed further. “When I was a kid, there were only yurts here,” she says, looking out at the desert surrounding White Rock. White Rock is a small mining community, ironically a traffic hub covered in dark mine dust, where she lives in between driving. Her melancholy is tinged with guilt. She knows she is part of a system that strips the region of its precious natural resources and transports them across its borders. Land cannot sustain this livelihood forever.
But trucking can pay like no other job. Maif, a single mother, previously worked as a hairdresser and a taxi driver in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, but was unable to earn enough to support herself and her children and now lives with her sister in the city. Although she dreams of living with her family in a developed country where she can easily find work, she stoically accepts her fate. “Everyone has different expectations, depending on their situation,” she sighs. Behind the wheel, she goes about her job emotionlessly, which can be dangerous for the unwary. The roads are narrow and accidents are common.
Confidently invested in the human subject, particularly as a representative of the evolving way of life of Mongolian women, Choejovanchig photographs her over a period of six years, moving through various stages. While her work life has changed dramatically during the coronavirus pandemic, clearly taking a toll on the film’s timeline, it also shows a much softer side of Mikey, showing bright contrasts and joy in events while returning home to see her children. Her otherwise harsh and unforgiving attitude is a professional necessity in a patriarchal realm that remains hostile to female drivers, and in a culture where working women still have to endure a lot of scrutiny, suspicion and stigma. Her young daughter feels humiliated by a rumor spread at school that her mother is a sex worker.
Mikeu’s candid and distinctive narration gives the film narrative coherence, even though the structure is zigzag and not everything is shared. “Colors of White Rock” hints at its heroine being a not-so-isolated, off-road existence, especially when it poignantly follows her through another pregnancy whose father is unknown. In contrast to such shocking personal developments, the growth and depletion of White Rock and the surrounding area is occurring simultaneously and at a much slower pace, but Choijo Banchigu and his patient camera do not ignore it. In this movie, the swirling sands don’t pass through the hourglass, but they tick time just the same.
