How entertaining? ★★★☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★★☆☆ 30 January 2015
This article is a review of WHITE GOD. |
“Everything that is terrible is something that needs our love,” Rilke
THE BIRDS meets DJANGO UNCHAINED meets LILYA 4-EVER, with canines, might somehow approximate the ambitions of WHITE GOD. Opening on that ambiguous/ominous/compassionate Rilke quote positions the film’s stall. A realistic, quote-unquote, monster movie utilising allegory to illustrate the heinousness of exploitation and superiority, WHITE GOD lends itself to several interpretations. As THE DARK KNIGHT discussed the war on terror and the war on drugs, WHITE GOD looks at conquest, eugenics and imperialism. See, told you, lofty goals.
THE BIRDS meets DJANGO UNCHAINED meets LILYA 4-EVER, with canines, might somehow approximate the ambitions of WHITE GOD. Opening on that ambiguous/ominous/compassionate Rilke quote positions the film’s stall. A realistic, quote-unquote, monster movie utilising allegory to illustrate the heinousness of exploitation and superiority, WHITE GOD lends itself to several interpretations. As THE DARK KNIGHT discussed the war on terror and the war on drugs, WHITE GOD looks at conquest, eugenics and imperialism. See, told you, lofty goals.
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Abandonment and abuse, then revenge, could be the story of both 13-year old Lili (Zsófia Psotta) and her dog Hagen. Unceremoniously left, by mother Elza (Lili Horváth), who is off to Australia for three months accompanied by new partner, with her ex-husband and Lili’s father, Daniel (Sándor Zsótér); his lack of enthusiasm at responsibility is palpable. Impatient and irascible, Daniel is even more unimpressed at having to care for Hagen. Nosey neighbour (Erika Bodnár) calls the authorities, which show up at Daniel’s door the next morning, unusually efficiently, demanding a new tax on mix-breed canines. Such policy is used as a symbol for all intolerant authoritarianism. Refusing to pay, Lili’s father abandons Hagen on the street.
Now a stray is where WHITE GOD shifts gear. While Hagen on an odyssey is the target of the conscienceless, Lili has a coming-of-age story witnessing how young people can be pushed around. In a particularly large segment, Hagen falls into the hands of an unscrupulous underground dogfight trainer. Indifferent to suffering, as so much of the film is concerned, the dogfight trainer, in a cruel anti-ROCKY montage, turns the gentle canine into a combat machine. Meanwhile dogcatchers are rounding up Budapest’s now forsaken mixed-breed strays for the pound.
So much of the runtime is spent on build up for the finale, that you wonder if it will come. It sure does. For 30 minutes Hagen leads a dog uprising that terrorises the city. Systematically hunting those that tortured him, the dog lead (ahem!) leaves a blood-splattered mess in his wake, aided by over 250 furry pals. Choreography of the animals, sans visible computer effects, has an old-school tangibility bereft from modern blockbusters. Only a couple of clumsy news bulletins, reporting on national capital panic, let the side down, unnecessarily compensating for budgetary constraints.
WHITE GOD is a B-movie with A-movie stylings, and a winning allegory. Would have been excellent if all dialogue had been removed.
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