This Outstanding Cannes Winner With 97% on RT Is a Criminally Unnoticed Drama
It will touch the strings of your soul.
Black Dog by Chinese director Guan Hu is one of the most awarded films of last year: it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the second most important program Un Certain Regard, where it won the main prize.
This is a meditative project about four-legged and two-legged criminals and the importance of finding your pack.
What Is Black Dog About?
After being released from prison, Lang returns to his hometown on the edge of the Gobi Desert. He used to be a real star – the best racer and motorcycle stunt performer – but now he is not very welcome in his hometown.
His father drinks, and the local mafia, led by a butcher, threatens to kill him. Meanwhile, the city is changing: in preparation for the 2008 Olympics, the local authorities are demolishing old houses and catching stray dogs.
For lack of other work, Lang gets a job on the catching team. One day, he encounters a black dog for whose capture the local authorities have promised a substantial reward – rumor has it that the dog is rabid and has bitten several people.
Black Dog Has a Simple Plot But Deep Meaning
The movie has a very simple plot, which can be summarized in one sentence: it tells the story of a lonely man's friendship with an equally lonely dog, which grows stronger as they overcome difficulties together.
What is important for such movies is that both the dog and the main character evoke unconditional sympathy.
The way Black Dog is made, of course, distinguishes it from family films: it is a meditative and very atmospheric movie, in which there is practically no talking, and the main events are outlined in dotted lines.
Black Dog Is a Touching Film about Friendship and Loyalty
There is a lot of exoticism in Black Dog: the mafia is led by a snake breeder, and Lang's father is a zookeeper, where he feeds a tiger. Nevertheless, the cultural code of the movie is Western.
The film is reminiscent not only of Drive – another movie about a taciturn main character who loves to drive fast – but also of the work of Jim Jarmusch, who has been finding poetry in the mundane for many years.
Black Dog is about fundamentally important things, and it is not a movie of despair, but of hope – a surprisingly optimistic, hopeful work that gives you faith that the sun will come out after the eclipse.
Where to Watch Black Dog?
You can buy Black Dog on Apple TV.