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“What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight–it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
One of the best new films I’ve seen in recent months is WHITE GOD (2014). This Hungarian production thoughtfully directed by Kornél Mundruczó tells the deeply troubling story of Hagen, a pampered pooch owned by a somewhat aloof thirteen-year-old girl named Lilli (Zsófia Psotta) who is abandoned by Lilli’s callous father and left to fend for himself. We follow the discarded pet on his harrowing journey through the streets of Budapest where he encounters other homeless dogs as well as abusive dogcatchers, cruel butchers and finally bloodthirsty dog handlers who train Hagen to kill. When he eventually escapes his torturers, he is a much meaner animal and forms a pack with other abused canines. In a brutal finale, the dogs roam the city taking revenge on the humans who have tormented them.
The film is weighted with biting social commentary as well as religious and political allegory but at its heart, WHITE GOD is a rather simple and profoundly sad story about a helpless dog that learns he must rely on himself and rebel against authority if he wants to survive in a dog-eat-dog world. It also doubles as a sensitive coming-of-age story about the young dog owner who learns a similar lesson although the perils and circumstances she faces are much more privileged and forgiving.
While watching WHITE GOD I was reminded of a few other films I admire that center around dogs like Hagen who were forced to take similar journeys while suffering the consequences of man’s inhumanity to man and animal alike.
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In case you haven’t noticed, animated films have gotten rather soft and comfortable. Families attend them expecting a pleasurable experience with some laughs, maybe a firm moral lesson or two, and then the film is quickly forgotten or replayed endlessly in a joyous loop. When I was growing up in the 1970s and early 80s, animated films tended to be unpredictable and were often aimed at adults as well as children. THE PLAGUE DOGS (1982) is an animated film made by the same production company that produced WATERSHIP DOWN (1978). And while WATERSHIP DOWN is often cited as one of darkest animated films ever made and it upset plenty of children (including me) when they first saw it, PLAGUE DOGS is much more disturbing. It centers around two canine pals (voiced by John Hurt and Christopher Benjamin) who escape from a medical research faculty where human “white coats” (as the dogs call them) perform horrible and deadly experiments on all kinds of animals for the benefit (I use that term reluctantly) of mankind. When the dogs flee their tormentors, they attempt to find a new home with a loving master who will care for them but their journey is thwarted at every turn. It ends vaguely, suggesting that death might be more rewarding than life among human beings. Despite its glum nature, THE PLAGUE DOGS is an important animated feature and one that deals with a complicated subject that is all too often swept under the rug.
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In Samuel Fuller’s WHITE DOG (1982), an actress named Julie (Kristy McNichol) accidentally hits a White German Shepherd while driving in the Hollywood Hills and rushes it to the nearest vet where the animal makes a quick recovery. She attempts to locate the owner but doesn’t have any luck and grows to love the dog after he saves her from a potential rapist. When her “white dog” begins attacking black residents and friends, Julie discovers that he was previously owned by racists who trained the canine to kill black men and women. Determined to get him untrained, she relies on the help of a skilled black dog trainer (Paul Winfield) to undue the dog’s conditioning. Unfortunately for everyone, the dog has been permanently scarred by his violent experiences at the hands of bigoted owners and the film doesn’t end well. White dog’s journey is more internal than external, but he shares much in common with Hagen in the previously mentioned WHITE GOD. Both films illustrate how animals (and fellow humans) can be taught despicable behavior that is hard to unlearn.
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The French film BAXTER (1989) is brilliantly narrated by an angry bull terrier with murder on his mind. Billed as a horror film, BAXTER is also another tale of an abused dog who journey’s from one family to the next causing destruction wherever he goes until he meets his match in a monstrous little boy obsessed with Hitler. Although the film only faintly hints at the violence Baxter has experienced at the hands of humans, it becomes apparent over the course of the film that much of his aggressive behavior is due to training. Like WHITE DOG, BAXTER ends badly and takes some deeply disturbing twists and turns but it’s one of the smartest and most unique films about a dog’s inner life that I’ve seen.
This is a just a small sampling of dog movies that I was reminded of while watching WHITE GOD recently but they would make an interesting as well as an emotionally draining triple bill if you’re an animal lover like myself. If you’d like to read more about dogs in the movies you might find a previous post I wrote a few years ago titled Man’s Best Fiend worth a look. Its focus is mainly on the way horror films depict dogs but all the movies I described above contain strong elements of horror.