Review of White God (2014) by Mikael K — 19 Feb 2015

A girl is riding a bicycle in deserted, sunlit Budapest. A massive pack of dogs turns on her street behind her, following. The girl starts glancing back, the dogs are gaining her while dramatic music starts playing.

Now that's a way to open a movie. What a scene!

Kornél Mundruczó's "Fehér isten" is a film about a dog separated from the little girl he loves, trying to reunite with her after separation. But it's absolutely nothing like "The Incredible Journey". The protagonist is dog Hagen (Luke and Body), a mixed-breed dog of 13-year-old Lili (Zsofia Psotta). Lili moves in with his father for three weeks with Hagen, but the father doesn't like dogs. Also, the city is imposing new rules on dogs, requiring all dogs of any other than pure Hungarian breed to get registered. A high fee will be collected from all dog-owners who want to keep on housing mixed-breeds. In an oddly non-Disney scene Lili has to comply with Hagen being abandoned on a highway by her father.

Hagen is now in immediate danger. All loitering dogs of questionable heritage are captured and taken into special centers no one really knows anything about. Enemies are everywhere. A simple mission of staying hidden from the authorities and finding Lily again turns into something dark as first hunger and cold, then human cruelty descend upon our canine hero.

Ultimately, a man who organizes dog fights catches Hagen and decides to turn the servile pet into a killer in scenes that made many people abandon the film festival screening I saw the flick in. Hagen is made anew, into something beaten and dangerous.

One can't help but notice that "Fehér isten" has been made in Hungary now when anti-Semitism is on a dramatic rise in the country's politics. The holocaust/concentration camp references of this parable are frightening, if even a bit too obvious from an artistic point of view. But there is universality there too, applying to all policies of oppression and racial segregation.

The movie presents itself mostly through allegory- the plot is unashamedly silly as it stands-, but manages to ascend onto other levels as well. There is a dreamlike feel to the atmosphere, harshly realistic scenes of plausible cruelty, horror elements that makes you wonder what would have happened if Hitchcock had decided to direct a film called "The Dogs". It's all engrossing stuff, thought-provoking and daringly different. I won't give anything away, but will note that just as Mundruczó really knows how to open a film, he also knows how to end it.