White God

I would not call it a horror movie unless they meant the animal torture that was difficult to see if you are an animal lover like me. The movie is well made if you think about some scenes that have more then one hundred dogs in it. It sure must not have been easy doing that. But honestly it was not my kind of movie. I don't know why I watch this kind of movies sometimes. I just can't stand watching animal abuse even if I know it is fake. The revenge of the dogs is also not very credible honestly. A pack of dogs would never act like that but I guess it's okay because it's fiction. Zsófia Psotta, the kid playing Lili, did a good job though. She obviously has talent as an actress. All in all it's not a bad movie but, if you like me don't like to watch animals getting abused, then I would just skip this one.

Do you like dogs? Well, there are a lot of them. A story that is sort of allegorical in that the dogs' behavior, which was instilled by their masters (White Gods), is turned against these gods as the dogs become like humans - capable of loyalty, devotion, but also of hate, rage, killing.

I thought some of the roles (dogs or humans) were a little too over-the-top not believable to get emotionally involved. We have bad - parents, merchants, musical conductor, animal control specialists, dog trainers. As for the dogs, although well trained, seemed too well trained.

Storyline is simple. We have a girl, independent beyond her age, roaming the streets at night searching for her lost dog. She finds her dog, but it has changed for the worse. Can it be saved?

At first it seems like a children's movie, but then it becomes too dark. It's a well made movie. The girl's acting is good.

It can be useful for us to reflect on the treatment we have with our pets or with animals in general.

White God 9/10 - This is a wonderful movie that plays as a parable about separatism and Hungarian politics during democratic rule. On the surface however lays an entertaining revenge flick against animal cruelty and a drama about the love of an animal towards it's human "the White God". The director uses a mish mash of genre's to keep the audience on it's toes, while paying homage to everything from Fuller's White Dog, to Hitchcock's Birds. The best part of the film was that they hired hundreds of shelter dogs and spent months training them, and after the film, the director and crew worked hard to get every dog adopted! These dogs are some of the best actors I have ever seen. This is a marvelous yet challenging film.

The opening and closing shots of White God are beautiful and powerful realizations of Director Kornél Mundruczó's allegorical horror/thriller vision. Unfortunately, much of the movie does not meet this lofty ideal.

White God tells the story of Lili who is forced by her hard-hearted father to leave her dog, Hagen, on the streets to fend for himself. As Hagen falls into a cycle of abuse and abandonment, Lili becomes more independent and forgets about him. Hagen retaliates against his human oppressors by leading his fellow shelter-dogs in an apocalyptic revolution.

Let's get one thing out of the way first: the fact that this movie was shot entirely with real dogs and practical effects is simply masterful. The angry canine horde is the most terrifying group of animals since The Birds, but Mundruczó works very hard to keep the audience sympathetic towards them. Animal Trainer Teresa Ann Miller deserves some sort of award for convincingly training over 200 dogs to convey such a wide breadth of emotion. Although I cringed seeing scenes of abuse and dog-fighting, "they were always happy, and just playing," said Mundruczó to Fangoria magazine.

Unfortunately, the acting of the dogs is by far the best acting in the movie. The actress who plays Lili does this annoying pursed-lip thing that will make you want to smack her through the screen. Lili's father remains a contemptible a** to the very end. Even the evil dog trainer, despite having the most well-scripted character, couldn't be more two-dimensional if he had a mustache to twirl.

To make matters worse, the only parts of the movie that are any good are those with Hagen. Lili's story is droll beyond belief and just feels like a distraction from Hagen. I wish that I could have read this movie as an allegory about man's abuse of animals or as a metaphor for how easily the middle class forget about the poor. Unfortunately, the tediousness of Lili's story, which was obviously written in after Hagen's, kept distracting me from the movie's emotional and philosophical core. When the movie should have been showing similarities between Lili and Hagen, it often simply drove their stories further apart.

Now, don't get me wrong, this was definitely a "good" movie. I would consider it required viewing for fans of horror and suspense. As a dog-lover, Hagen's story really hit the emotional nail on the head. Mundruczó's ambitious vision is, in itself, highly commendable. It is unfortunate that a few poor directorial choices kept this movie from becoming the masterpiece it deserved to be.

Maybe an American remake will fix some of these problems? Probably not...