The dog film has enjoyed great popularity for decades and probably not just since “Lassie”. Man’s best friend shines in the cinema as an excellent detective companion (“Scott & Huutsch”, “My Partner with the Cold Snout”), tests family abilities (“Marley & Me”), is considered a warm-hearted friend of children (“A Dog Named Beethoven”) and a lifesaver in times of need (“Benji”). After all, it even stands for romance (“Susi and Tramp”), friendship (“Cap & Capper”) and a sense of adventure (“Bolt”).
We have listed eight other extraordinary dog films in which dogs play a major role (if not the main role) – and which you won’t soon forget.
1. Underdog (2014)
Kornél Mundruczó’s drama about a young girl who sets out to find her abandoned dog Hagen is one of the most extraordinary cinematic experiences of recent years. The first suggestive scene, when a whole horde of dogs rushes through a deserted street in Budapest, brings back memories of Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. And in fact, the creatures that have been trampled upon and mistreated are trying to take revenge on people. In his parable about the grievances of (Eastern) European societies, the Hungarian director succeeds with great sensitivity in turning his animal protagonists into authentic actors. Impressive: no computer animation was necessary.
2. Wendy And Lucy (2008)
Wendy (Michelle Williams) is pretty burned out. Together with her dog Lucy, she sets off for Alaska to possibly find work in a fish factory there. Several coincidences ensure that she ultimately can’t even find a roof over her head. After the young woman steals dog food for her loyal companion in a supermarket, she is caught by the police and has to leave Lucy alone. When she returns from the guard, the animal has disappeared. Kelly Reichardt, one of the most talented representatives of the new realism in US cinema, uses her cool road movie to tell the story of the ashen edges of American society and illustrates the relationship between humans and dogs in a way that is both gentle and illuminating.
3. Heart Of A Dog (2015)
Laurie Anderson’s filmic essay experimentally combines ideas about the political and social situation of the present with an enchanting meditation on love, life and crime. The focus is not only on her late husband Lou Reed, but also on her mother and her beloved dog Lolabelle. They all died within just a few months of each other. Childhood memories are recalled with philosophical seriousness and anecdotes are told in associative form and seemingly without a predetermined goal. The little terrier, who has to prove himself in a fight with falcons and goes blind with age, becomes a (also animated) symbol for the turmoil of life and gives the singer, who also interweaves her music in a very unpretentious way, the opportunity to talk about Buddhism, surveillance culture and musical maturation without seeming to be trying for a moment. A completely necessary artist’s film – and the most beautiful declaration of love for a dog that you can imagine.
4. Hachiko (2009)
Of course, Hollywood had to become aware of the story of the Japanese Akita dog Hachiko at some point, as the unconditional loyalty of the four-legged friend, who basically waits at a train station for his (deceased) master for the rest of his life, is the ideal basis for a tear-jerker. But in telling this true story – with a wonderful Richard Gere in the lead role – Lasse Halström once again proves his talent for sensitive, tragicomic moments and portrays friendship and warm-heartedness, albeit always on the edge of kitsch, so authentically that “Hachiko” has long since become something of an unofficial (pre-)Christmas classic.
5. Amores Perros (2000)
The feature film debut of the now multiple Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu, the adaptation of a novel by Guillermo Arriaga, impresses above all with its shimmering, episodic narrative style, which is based on “Pulp Fiction” and yet pursues a completely different (humanistic) goal. A car accident connects the biographies of Octavio and Susanna, Valeria and Daniel as well as El Chivo and Maru in this story about love, death and the dream of a successful life. Old El Chivo lives with a bunch of dogs on the streets of Mexico City and encourages them to engage in violent dog fights. These fight scenes alone have what it takes to go down in film history, as their ruthless staging takes a look at a shadowy zone in dealing with loyal four-legged friends, which is characterized by the cultivation of aggression and the subordination of the animal to the interests of humans.
6. Baxter (1990)
Many films are dedicated to the jealousy that also affects pets when their owners are suddenly busy with other things and no longer have time for their pet. But no film has ever done this as overwhelmingly raw and spiteful as “Baxter” by Jérôme Boivin. Baxter, a bull terrier, lives with an older woman and longingly watches a young couple in the neighborhood. While his owner only seems focused on her animal and completely isolates herself from the world, Baxter wants to break away from the restrictive relationship. He causes a fatal accident and actually makes it into the care of the happy couple next door. But when she is expecting a child, the angry four-legged friend tries again to solve the problem with violence. In Germany, the film, which is not always easy to endure, has the dull title “Bell me the song of death”. But the French adaptation of a novel by Ken Greenhall – carried by the haunting narrative voice of the dog looking for a home – is absolutely not trash, but a bitterly funny farce that will leave you laughing in your throat.
7. Umberto D. (1952)
“Umberto D.”, one of the great and last works of art of Italian neorealism, is a precise description of the state of Italy shortly after the Second World War. Divided into several episodes, it shows an excerpt from the life of Umberto D. Ferrari, who goes about his bleak everyday life in complete solitude. While hardly anyone is interested in him (even his landlady punishes him with dark looks), Umberto at least has his dog Flik, with whom the broken man maintains a completely friendly relationship. Nevertheless, he tries to give the animal a way out of the sadness. He abandons him in the park. But Flik comes back – and Umberto decides to take him with him to his death. Vittorio De Sica (“Bicycle Thieves”) outlines all the nuances of human suffering in his tragedy. But the unsparing look at the reeling souls is at the same time characterized by great tenderness and awe at the miracle of love. Even though no hope for Umberto is apparent, in the final scene we see him playing with his dog in the park.
8. The Dogs Are Loose (1982)
Dogs often appear in animated films and – whether in “Lady and the Tramp” or in “Pets” – they are usually cutely exaggerated or overly humanized. Martin Rosen, who adapted “Watership Down” by author Richard Adams for the cinema in 1978 with maximum seriousness through both his drawing style and narrative approach, dared to make a dog film in the 80s that would hardly be suitable for children’s eyes. Dark images are used to criticize the meaning and purpose of animal testing. Two dogs, a Labrador and a terrier, who were tortured in an experimental laboratory, manage to escape, but they only fight more for survival in the wilderness because they are no longer used to freedom. But a fox helps them orientate themselves. But because the false report is circulating that the escaped four-legged friends have the bubonic plague, they are ultimately hunted mercilessly. A frightening and melancholic film in which the people as exploiters and aggressors only flit through the picture like dark shadows.