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 White God

12/24/2015

13 Comments

 

C+
2.17

A teenage girl is separated from her beloved dog.

Directed by Kornel Mundruzco

​Initial Review by Jon Kissel

Picture
There's a French movie I recently watched called Au Hasard Balthazar.  Directed by the renowned Robert Bresson, it's a tribute to good old Christian suffering, as a young woman and her donkey nobly withstand abuse dealt to them by people unworthy of their innate goodness.  That movie's also about the choice by the powerful to do harm to the powerless, plus the danger of giving power away in good faith, both themes that are resonant in White God as well.  Besides both movies having excellent animal acting, that's where the comparison ends.  Spoiler, but the donkey never loses control and bites someone's throat out.  Kornel Mondruczo's White God is split between its two leads.  One, an adolescent girl played by Zsofia Psotta, rebels against being treated like a child, while the other, a dog played doubly by Bodie and Luke, rebels against being treated like an animal.  There's a coherent twinning between the two, and Mondruczo's treats both subjects with respect.  

The girl, Lili, hasn't seen her father Daniel (Sandor Zsoter) for a long period of time, and in that interval, he hasn't adjusted his parenting style to her changing circumstances.  Their initial meeting is frosty.  He makes her spit out her gum into his hand, and he doesn't value what she wants.  He is not an ally to his own daughter, and chases off her closest companion, forcing her to look for Hagen the dog on her own and without his knowledge.  Daniel's discipline doesn't make her obey; it just makes her sneakier.  Their relationship doesn't warm until he acknowledges and mourns the end of her childhood, something that happened when he wasn't around.  From this point, Lili is happier, as her life has been accurately categorized by the people around her, and Daniel can begin a new phase of his life as a parent.

Where Lili's trajectory is towards acknowledgement, Hagen's life is being defined for him.  From day one with Daniel, Hagen is left to howl in the bathroom by himself.  His friendliness while Lili is practicing her trumpet becomes the tipping point, as his own best qualities damn him towards suffering.  Daniel throws Hagen out for the offense, left vainly to run after Lili until her car's out of sight.  From there, he gets reclassified downward from beloved pet to mutt to mongrel to killer.  Eons of evolution and breeding have made dogs adaptable and Hagen plays each role well, but each step he gets further from his initial introduction, it becomes less and less certain if he can ever get back to playing with Lili in a sun-dappled yard.

That question of rehabilitation is effective throughout the film because the relationship between Lili and Hagen is so perfect.  This is basically how I imagine MMC member Ashli and her dog Fender, like if Fender ripped several throats out, she'd still play him the trumpet to calm him down and stare in his eyes.  Lili does all the dog-human signifiers, like feeding him under the table and wanting to sleep in the same bed.  Interestingly, on a sojourn out into the countryside, they watch a dog and its owner practice obedience, while Lili whispers to Hagen that that will never be them.  It's not that Hagen doesn't do what he's told necessarily, but that they won't ever have that relationship of master and pet.  In a way that I think Psotta and Bodie/Luke portray convincingly, they are somehow equals.

Going into White God, I only knew about the third act, and Mondruczo delivers on the zombie-like aspects.  He owes a debt of gratitude to Danny Boyle and 28 Days Later, as the opening shots and the climax both came heavily borrowed.  During that climax, tribute must be paid to the sequence of the dogs stalking through the dog-fighter's house, culminating with the fantastic shot of a growling Hagen slowly trotting out of the darkness, watching while his former master is mauled.  In the rest of the film, Mondruczo captures things clinically.  The butchering of the cows at Daniel's job sets up the relationship the film is going to explore between man and animal, and pulls no punches in flinching from gore and viscera.  At the same time, he is neither manipulative nor cruel when depicting the harsher parts of White God.  The viewer doesn't need to see Hagen beaten, as the chain straining against its tether will suffice.  The dog fight is appropriately brutal, as is the mournful look in Hagen's eyes as his opponent is dragged away.  In lighter scenes, like waiting for Hagen to burst out of the orchestra closet, Mondruczo waits longer that I expected to have Hagen interrupt everything and seal his fate, building tension past when I thought it would explode.

The most impressive part of Mondruczo's efforts is in the performances he coaxes out of the animal actors.  Make no mistake, I liked Psotta and Zsoter fine, but I am baffled at how Bodie and Luke, Hagen's dog friend, and the other dogs were portrayed.  It's completely natural dog behavior, despite the distraction of having a film crew surrounding the animal.  I don't want to imply that dogs are emotionally limited, because it's impossible to know if that's true, but I was shocked at how well Bodie/Luke communicated exactly what both the movie wanted them to feel and what I thought the actual dog was feeling.  There's Hagen poking the dead dog, watching the dog being put to sleep, in the aftermath of the fight, and the frequent reunions with his dog friend, and several more instances where I was in that dog's head. 

White God doesn't completely pop for me and left me slightly cold, but it's memorable for containing one of the all-time best animal performances.  The story works as a Rise of the Planet of the Apes-style rebellion, and as a coming-of-age story before culminating in a zombie film that ends in a sweet period between the zombies finding their humanity and their imminent deaths.  I liked that last shot a great deal, but I think the movie ended there because in another 30 seconds, all those dogs were going to be killed by the police.  Hagen was driven to rage and murder, but come on, he's gotta go.  Sorry, Lili.  Mondruczo becomes one to watch for me, and White God earns a B.
13 Comments
Sean
12/24/2015 10:35:24 am

As I begin to write, it’s 11:52 PM on Dec 22ND. By the time I finish Festivus will be upon us.

With that in mind, its time for an airing of grievances. I’ve got a lot of problems with this movie. Why are the people so one-sidedly awful in this movie? Mom and boyfriend dump a girl on her dog on her dad, he doesn’t want them especially the dog. There is no explanation for why mutts are so hated in this movie. Something to do with not being purebred or acceptable Hungarian dogs. Big fines for mutts? Why? Dad is so offended he carries it by the collar to sleep in the bathroom. Neighbor lady is such a bitch she calls the cops and claims to be bitten. Next thing you know Lili tries to take the dog to band practice? Her band is made up of a wide range of ages here; she must be some kind of child prodigy- why does she not own a trumpet case??? Her teacher would shit himself every day she showed up to class carrying the thing loosey goosey in a backpack. Next thing you know dad drops the dog off on the side of the road. What the hell? These aren’t people. The dog gets creatine and steroids and works out while tethered to the Festivus pole but no real montage and suddenly Mike Vick is envious (sorry ATL peeps). The Feats of Strength were much more graphic than needed and only served to show that Max can grieve even for his defeated foe. A random power outage, did the dog cut the power while no one was looking and Max runs away to eventually form his army of castoff dogs who begin to rule the streets. While Max is doing this, Lili is crushing on the older boy at a rave and getting arrested. Somehow her asshole dad cares about her now that she’s been arrested- nothing about him up to that point suggests that would be his reaction. Max puts on his feats of strength in conquering the city and extracting revenge on the humans who have done him wrong until a Festivus miracle occurs and they’re all tamed by the trumpet. I’m pretty sure dogs hate trumpets.

This movie has to be a metaphor for something because otherwise why does it exist. I guess it’s about how violence begets violence and we need to invest in the arts to end terrorism.

I really want to say F+ but I’ll say D+ instead because that’s a grade they don’t like to give away. I would say I bet Drew likes this movie because I hated it but he'll probably say it glorified dog fighting.


Mindy made it through the dog being sold by the homeless guy and said how do you people watch this, I give it an F.


PS- As you can see I had forgotten the dogs proper name Hagen and only remembered the murderous Max. Not until Jon’s review did Hagen come back.

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Bryan
12/24/2015 11:13:46 am

The power outage and dad's second coming were both plot holes that had me scratching my head. Phil will surely justify them to me if he ever stops moving.

I'm not sure how you couldn't remember "Hagen" it was 1/2 of the lines in the movie.

"Hagen!"



"Hagen!"



"Hh aa gg ee nnn!"

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Jon
12/24/2015 08:49:11 pm

I assumed the power outage was engineered by the fighters who were trying to get Hagen from his owner. When the owner wouldn't sell him, they turned the lights out with the intent to kidnap Hagen, but the dog escaped. Having him go through two dog-fighting owners was plenty, and I'm glad they didn't make Hagen suffer through a third.

What do you mean by the dad's second coming? His showing up at the end, or him coming around to Lili?

Sean
12/24/2015 08:53:19 pm

I'm assuming he's referring to the dad coming around to Lili which was completely unearned the way he acted early on.

Bryan
12/24/2015 11:10:42 am

A world where everyone hates dogs for seemingly no reason is a travesty, just like this movie. Two of the dozen people we meet are barked at and say their bit. Has the definition of bit changed? The first 40 minutes were a girl and a dog walking around being scolded. The girl was flat and that dog, it could obey directing commands better than Nicolas Cage. The one and only, thank God, dog fight was brutal and I turned my head - I didn't care who won, I just wanted it to be over. I wanted the whole movie to be over.

Then pow! Hagen is a murderer and we've gone from girl and dog movie to a weird horror movie where the number of rabid dogs seemingly multiply each scene. I couldn't tell if this movie was supposed to be a spoof or taken seriously. I started this review at C-, but I think I've talked myself down to a D+. Other than Hagen, this movie had zero redeeming qualities.

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Jon
12/24/2015 08:58:08 pm

It seems like you and Riley are having a hard time getting past the community's opinion on non-purebred dogs. I just accepted it as a term of the movie. There's plenty of countries that farm and eat dogs. While making no statement about the morality of doing that, between the atmosphere we know where pets are treated as part of the family and a place where dogs are a commodity, I can imagine a middle ground where purebred dogs are loved and mutts are not. It just doesn't seem like much of a leap to me.

Pow implies that Hagen going bloodthirsty happened out of nowhere, where I think there's a coherent progression towards him hating humans.

As far as how this film is supposed to be taken, reading some interviews with the director implies that it's heavily allegorical, with the magical realism of a fairy tale. That gives it some leeway in my mind as far as things lining up plotwise. In fairy tales, it's less important that the logic makes sense as much as it does the emotions, and I think White God gets the emotions down pretty well.

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Sean
12/24/2015 09:06:04 pm

Give me a crazy Australian animal quarantine law or something. Dogs were just so cartoonishly hated and the adults were all so terrible the only emotion I could gather was the loathing of all events presented on screen.

Admin
12/24/2015 11:11:10 am

Third spot saved for replies to the initial review.

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Lane
12/31/2015 01:04:28 am

What the heck is “White God” really about? Is it a Marxist film? Is it a modern social commentary? Is it a fable about World War II concentration camps? Is it a coming of age story? A Hitchcock-ian horror film? The most demented “Benji” remake ever?

The strength and weakness of the movie is that it’s all of these things. It chooses to hit some really, really big themes with a cast of dogs. Amazing. The story telling is so all over the place, however, that I felt like I had whiplash. We went from a girl-meets-dog homecoming story to a film about demon dogs taking over a post-apocalyptic Eastern Block town at the whim of Terminator overlord anti-hero Max/Hagen. It was hard to make the emotional adjustments needed for this film.

To get to the undercurrents of the film you’ve got to listen to the soundtrack. Most of the music is Richard Wagner, the 19th century German composer who was both a genius and probably a sociopath. He vehemently hated the middle class bourgeois culture of the time and had some pretty crazy and bloody fantasies of proletariat uprisings. He totally would have written an opera about a bunch of dogs running through the streets. Both Nietzsche and Hitler loved Wagner. He also wrote an opera with a title character named "Hagen" who is cast out from society. “Tannenhaus” is a love story, as it turns out, but it’s a tragic love story. The hero offends the ruling class and has to beg forgiveness from the Pope. When the forgiveness isn’t given, his lover takes her own life in grief. I’d rise up against that crap too.

Of course, it’s also Wagner that calms the revolution at the end of the film. Maybe Mundruzco is suggesting we all make our beds together – the ruled and the ruling, the rebellion and the rebelled against. To be honest, I have no idea. The film tackled so many big ideas I’m not sure if any of them are actually valid, but that’s my reading.

The downsides of the film, for me, are #1: the cinematography – I know the director was trying to get the dogs-eye-view of things, but I felt it was overused and made parts of the film just plain difficult to watch. #2: the uneven storytelling – the club scenes seemed superfluous to the story. This film could have been 15 minutes shorter for the better.

But there were also some moments of brilliance in the movie – the sheer scope of the animal acting is really astonishing when you think about it. The interactions between Lili and her band director are great (for anybody that has ever had a dictatorial band director in high school), and even as improbable as it is, I was really cheering on the dogs as they rampaged against their fascist former masters. That’s why dogs are better than cats.

The film wasn’t coherent enough for an A, but as a closet socialist, I appreciate the sentiment.

Grade: B

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Lane
12/31/2015 01:14:13 am

Oh, and of note: had the door code of Lili's father's apartment been "1956," which is the year of the Hungarian uprising against Soviet occupation, this film would have immediately been upgraded a half letter grade. However, the code was 1965. As far as I can tell, nothing of historical import happened in Hungary in 1965.

Missed opportunity.

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Sean
1/2/2016 11:33:54 am

Do you have all this information at the ready or do you research before writing- either way you continue to break the rules of mediocrity this club was founded on

Cooker
1/25/2016 03:05:39 pm

I was hesitant every time I saw White God come up as an option because I watched the show Zoo and am currently halfway through the James Patterson book it was based on. A bunch of dogs going haywire and attacking people seemed already done after partaking in the new show.

I shit you not that my first note written down was, “Oh, hi, doggie.”

This film can easily be described as Sarah McLachlan’s worst nightmare. I don’t understand the title. Was someone dyslexic and it was supposed to be White Dog? Midge, help me out.

Lili and her dog Hagen have to move in with her father who she’s estranged with. He finds it an inconvenience and doesn’t want the dog around due to policies and having to pay a fee for having a “mutt.” I found it funny how everyone frowned upon the concept of not being a pure bred dog. I was half expecting a vulgar slang word like “mudblood” to be used at one point.

So, the dad abandons the dog while they’re out one day, leading to 80% of the dialogue of the film being “HAGEN!!!!” And poor Hagen goes through hell. The dog catchers are after him, a butcher tries to cleave him to death, and he ends up being trained for dog fights. He goes through hell. This is where Sarah McLachlan would protest. At some point Hagen joins up with other stray dogs, including one who I simply named “Little Puppy.” They helped each other out when escaping from the butcher.

In the meantime, Lili is doing her orchestra thing playing the trumpet and looking for her dog when she has time, constantly leaving home when she’s not supposed to, going to drug parties. It felt like I was watching two separate movies that were only jointly connected by the fact that Lili playing the trumpet would put Hagen to sleep.

Hagen ends up at the pound, and after the dog fighting training, he’s pretty pissed off. He attacks and kills a guard and leads a rampage with all the other dogs from the pound. I found it confusing that there was legit mass hysteria amongst all the people over this. Hagen was strategically going around and killing the people that wronged him, but it was as if this pack of dogs was just killing everybody left and right. I didn’t really see that. Did I miss something? So, now the police are fighting back just shooting dogs left and right. Don’t look, Sarah McLachlan! I was sad when they killed “Little Puppy.” He was just trying to be a friend.

The movie ends with a big showdown where the army of dogs are creeping up on Lili. Since she carried her trumpet in her backpack the entire movie, it was pretty obvious that she was going to turn into the Queen of the Dogs and calm them all down with her sleeping song. I’m not sure about this one. It had potential, but everything felt disconnected. And everyone was just so mean. Apparently mixed breed dogs are the spawns of Satan. I’ll definitely take sides with Sarah McLachlan on this one, some of the scenes involving abuse to the dogs bothered me. I’m giving this a C- After all, it could’ve been worse—they could’ve made the dogs talk.

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Shane
2/9/2016 04:56:30 pm

Impressed by canines
But story not near as much
The third act lost me

C+

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