Heart of a Dog

I am a Laurie Anderson fan. I have been since her album "Big Science" was released in 1982. I remember listening to "Walking and Falling" over and over on my SONY Walkman as I walked many paths and feeling like she really got it, whatever it was. I continued to follow her, through her release of "Home of the Brave" in 1986 and saw her perform live at the Zellerbach Hall in the 90s. Her marriage to Lou Reed seemed so perfect. So, when I heard she made a movie, I had to check it out. As I left the theater, I could only ask myself, "Why did it take so long?"

"Heart of a Dog" is a beautiful tribute to life, love, and the fleeting nature of time. It is everything you would expect from a Laurie Anderson movie and then some. It is not a documentary, it is a cinematic essay on loss and love and death and remembrance. It is poetry on film. Laurie Anderson is, in my mind, first and foremost a poet. She has been graced with an understanding of the power of language, not only in the actual chosen words, but in the cadence of their delivery. The influence of Burroughs is obvious. In "Heart of a Dog", she translates that poetry to imagery, mixing home movies, weird distorted images barely recognizable, to straight up film moments, it all comes together as the ultimate Laurie Anderson expression.

If you are not a fan, this may not be the film for you, or it may be a gateway into the mind of a creative genius. It is not so much a film as a stream of consciousness visual essay. If you are a fan, then make all haste to see this film. It is everything you can imagine a Laurie Anderson film to be.

Tremendously moving and beautiful, and the best capturing of Laurie Anderson's unique combination of off-beat humor, heartbreak, poetry music, images, animation, stories, Buddhist philosophy and artistic experimentation yet on film.

In theory it's the story of Anderson's relationship with Lolabelle, her beloved terrier, as the dog moves through life towards aging and death. But it is also clearly thematically about her love for, and loss of her husband Lou Reed, and her pondering of her own mortality and the meaning of life.

Yet as dour and daunting as that sounds, Anderson never loses sight of the joy that abides with sorrow, knowing that there is no love without pain, and no pain without the seeds of joy.

And while it's a heady mix, and resolutely refuses to act anything like a 'normal' movie, Anderson is also the most accessible of experimentalists. She has no interest in torturing or confounding her audience, just catching them off guard and getting them to think new ways - - but always with a smile, a wink and a chuckle at it all. She's a tremendously important artist, and this film is great for fans and newcomers alike.

Brilliant memoir/essay film/experimental film about impermanence, family history, and love. If you like first-person cinema (Agnes Varda, Ross McElwee, Sarah Polley, Jem Cohen, Thomas Allen Harris, Doug Block, Su Friedrich, Jonathan Couaette, etc.) you'll love this film.

If you are looking to see a traditional documentary (social issues doc; biopic; historical film) and aren't familiar with literary memoir, art installations, animation, or personal essay (either written or filmed), you may find this film difficult or confusing, as did the previous reviewer.

But if you love memoir and poetry, and have been thinking about stuff like: 1) it's hard to lose beings we love 2) where do we go when we die? 3) what are the connections between big political losses and changes and smaller, more personal losses and changes? 4) what is the connection between suffering and empathy and meaning? 5) how do our own particular hardships affect how we relate to our families? YOU'LL LOVE THIS FILM.

If you love humor, subtlety, formal innovation, Buddhist cosmologies, intelligence, mystery, and (yes) dogs, GO FOR IT.

Heart of a dog is one of the most moving and interesting art movies I have ever seen. The story seems to be about the rat terrier Lollabelle but when the story begins there is that absurd tale of Laurie giving birth to the dog after surgeons have implanted the dog in her uterus and when it ends you realize that is really about a mother/daughter relation. The poetry in the movie is beautiful and absurd as ever and the images are stunning. You get really drawn into the story. Like her mother said in her last words; "Take care of the animals". Laurie did take care of her animal.

"Heart of a Dog" (2015 release; 75 min.) is a non-fiction movie by musician/performance artist Laurie Anderson. As the movie opens, we see a cartoon-animated Laurie Anderson inform us that "this is my dream body" and that in her dream she gives birth to an adult dog whom she calls Lolabelle. It's not long before Laurie starts reflecting on her dying mother, 9/11, SIDS, and a bunch of other things.

Couple of comments: Laurie Anderson, best known for her minimalist music such as "O Superman" from the early 80s, is no stranger to movie making. Here she takes two particular tough periods in her life, the decline and death of her rat terrier Lolabelle and the decline and death of her mother, to weave a collage of images and montage of sound, supplemented by Laurie's spoken words in which she explores "the connection between love and death" (Laurie's words) and everything in between. One might call it a stream of consciousness, except that Laurie is not rambling in the least. Let me tell you. it makes for one amazing movie experience. It's like being in a dream. if not a trance, where things somehow become a lot clearer. Let me also mention that I was vaguely aware of the movie, along the lines of: "that's the documentary about Laurie's dog", and I almost did not watch the movie for that reason. As it turns out, the movie devotes only about 10-15 min. to the dog, and the movie is not even a documentary. So it was a complete misconception on my part what this movie was about (and to be honest, the movie's title only reinforced that misconception). Last but not least, Laurie's husband Lou Reed (who passed away in 2013) isn't mentioned a single time, but an excellent song of his, "Turning Time Around", does play over the movie's end titles. Please note: you don't have to be a fan of Laurie Anderson to appreciate this movie (but it certainly doesn't hurt if you are).

"Heart of a Dog" showed up out of the blue and without any pre-release buzz or advertising at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati last weekend. The early evening screening when I saw it a few days ago was not attended well (three people, including myself), and I noticed that it will drop out of the theater after today. That's a shame, as this is a remarkable movie in many respects, and by all means deserves a wider audience. If you are in the mood for something very different, all the while realizing that is a deeply personal essay and film from Laurie Anderson, I encourage you to check it out, be it in the theater, on VOD or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. "Heart of a Dog" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!