White God

Starring: Zsofia Psotta, Sandor Zsoter, Lili Horvat, Szabolcs Thuroczy, Lili Monori
Directed: Kornel Mundruczo
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Thriller
2014

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A girl (Zsofia Psotta) searches for her missing dog in Hungary.

Review:

With the sheer volume of films that are released every year, it's a foregone conclusion that any viewer will miss the majority of them. White God fell into that category for me. I'd never even heard of it during its initial release. It was only 6 years later, in an article about director Kornel Mundruczo that I stumbled across this film. I'm so thankful I searched it out. This is a film quite unlike anything I've seen before. Coming from Hungary perhaps helped- it's far away from typical Hollywood fare. However, you can't just chalk it up to geography. Mundruczo had a unique vision for this film.

It's hard to explain this movie. There's the story of a 13 year-old girl who goes to live with her father. They clash frequently, eventually resulting in him abandoning her dog at the side of the road. She searches the city for him while navigating the relationship with her father. That story is memorable and interesting. However, it's the story of her dog, Hagen, that really hits home. It seems weird to write that. I found the dog's story more compelling. Mundruczo does something amazing, though. We watch Hagen move through the streets, running into other dogs, running from dogcatchers. He goes through an arduous journey that includes a stint in dog fighting. Mundruczo was able to capture the personality of Hagen. You feel this deep connection to the dog. His eyes draw you in and you feel for him. It's a wide array of emotions that Mundruczo is able to pull out through the story of this abandoned dog. As the movie progresses, you hope more and more that dog and girl will be reunited.

I do need to address the next part of the film and I'm not sure how to do this without SPOILERS. Maybe skip this paragraph if you haven't seen the movie yet. The story progresses along, but then takes an unexpected turn. It amounts to a pack of dogs that go on a murderous rampage. It seems so strange to write that, like it belongs to a different movie than the one I've been describing. The brilliance of this film is that it doesn't seem disjointed. Mundruczo weaves this into the story where it makes logical sense. I'm unsure how he accomplished that, but he did. These scenes are stunning. I read that the 274 dogs used in this film represents a world record for the most dogs depicted in a single movie. The training required for these scenes to take place is mind blowing. From a technical standpoint, these scenes are just incredible.

Most powerfully, White God gives you so much to think about. It's a story about a girl and her father trying to connect. It's a story about how we as the dominate species treat other species, namely the dogs that we domesticated to our will. It's about how people treat dogs- abandoning them, forcing them to fight, euthanizing them. It's a story about how love can conquer fear and anger. It's a spellbinding, unexpected journey. It might just miss out on greatness, but it's a film I've thought long about since I finished it. It's a movie that easily could have never showed up on my radar. It's a movie well worth checking out.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7.5



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