Review of White God (2014) by Chantal B — 10 Jun 2016

One of the films I can remember best from my childhood, despite only seeing it once is Black Beauty. Witnessing the tragedies that befall a horse in 1800s London is like watching the fate of mute slave, unable to even form a complaint or utter a cry for mercy. That film used narration, a tactic I think was a mistake. Watching Hagen change from a dog I recognize in my own pet to an aggressive being consumed with hatred and self-disgust is made powerful by the little expressions only a dog can make and yet we all can read. The crinkled forehead, lowered tail, the slight twitch of the lips when thinking about fighting for food, raising an ear in a hopeful gesture, praying that his girl has returned to him. The dog really is the best actor in the film, and when you consider that he was a street dog untrained until six months before the film, it really is impressive.

The girl character is harder to fathom. I saw a lot of myself in her, and she bore a lot of resemblance to me at that age. Closed off to everyone except her dog, she too goes down a darker path without him. But I never really feared for her the same way I did Hagen, and her vocalizations and expressions were the same when arguing with her father, wooing her love interest, and desperately searching for her dog. I get that the character is supposed to have trouble emoting, but some variation and stress would have been an excellent way to show the strain she was under. She mostly looks and acts pouty, even when her father dumps her dog at the side of the road.

Some people may be disappointed with the ending. I guess I was, if only because of the way the film began. I got it into my head that the city had been overrun by dogs for months on end, a post-apocalyptic future where Canine reigned supreme. I loved that idea and aesthetic. But that is not the case. The ending is one where dogs take control for a single bloody night, and ultimately, sadly, it is humans who continue their indifferent and cold regime. But for once, two of them lower themselves to the level of the dogs.

There are tons of fairy tales and greek myth (especially the Orpheus tale) in the film, but what I thought of most wasn't classic literature, but a single memory from a road trip years ago I took with my father. We were passing through an Aboriginal Reservation and my father mentioned that many dogs are often abandoned on reservations, and his own experiences being attacked by a pack of dogs from his own local reservation as a young man. A half hour later, we passed a deer on the side of the road, probably roadkill. It was surrounded by dogs of all shapes and sizes, tearing chunks of meat from the carcass, their mouths crimson and tails wagging. Only one turned to look at us as we roared past. I took in this image in the split second our speed would allow. It was a small white terrier with floppy ears, one of them brown. Their bloody muzzle stood out against all that white, and stayed with me for the next hundred thousand miles.