The Wild Dogs

The Wild Dogs gives us a glimpse of poverty and cruelty that very few North Americans have ever been exposed to. I left the theater shaken by what I had seen. All the same, there is evidence of the compassionate side of the human spirit evident as well, which makes the film as a whole more stirring. It is at the limits of what cinema is capable of conveying emotionally, and well worth seeing.

This movie is filmed in Romania. The brilliant director/writer, Thom Fitzgerald, takes you on a journey that is shocking, raw, and honest. Emotions are beautiful and raw. I was thinking throughout the movie how little control we really do have over our own lives.

The characters sort of creates themselves. Sometimes I was so angry that I felt like throwing up but then suddenly I would see something that was extremely tender and funny. Fitzgerald controls the viewer as though he has a whip: he knows how to use it, but he also knows when to lie it down.

The camera shoots are exceptional as well. Watch the movie the second time and take in all the background, the shading, the movements, the actors.

I've never seen a movie like The Wild Dogs. I really can't remember seeing a movie that has made me so angry at some characters but then so happy with other characters. I don't know how Fitzgerald did it, but he has created a masterpiece. Watch the movie for what it is: not what you think it should be because I think most people would find the subject matter totally haunting. This movie is not for the faint of heart.

I rate this movie a 10 out of 10.

Don't be fooled, Bucharest is far from what is being portrayed in this movie. There are less beggars than here, in Montreal, there are some stray dogs, but not 1000's of them. Picking the most dramatic beggars and with continuous exaggeration, the movie convinces the audience that Bucharest is a city full of poor mutilated beggars and 1000's of stray dogs. How far from truth, but director and actor Thom Fitzgerald can only rely on this sensation to create any positive interest in his movie. Putting down Bucharest also looks like a hidden denial, here at home in Canada, where one wonders how this country is now so behind even when compared to an ex-communist Eastern block country such as Romania. Bucharest is far more civilized than any Canadian city. (look up civilized in the dictionary) One should wonder what is a Canadian child-pornographer doing in Romania? Hmmmm....

While I give credit to the filmmaker for completing such a film in what must have been difficult circumstances (political, not emotional), I would expect a film like this from adventurous student filmmakers. This is by no means a great film, both technically and dramatically.

While it is always good shock value to show desperate conditions, there must also be good story, good acting and good craft to make a good film (for example, Schindler's List). This film has none of those. The NTSC DVD that I watched was of the poorest production values, with behind the scenes footage that is embarrassing.

What I find more interesting than the film is the dynamics of the comments found here on IMDb. From overwhelming praise to outright denial of the circumstances portrayed in the film. If the film got one thing right, it is portraying the atmosphere of the streets of Bucharest. The thousands (Yes, there are thousands of them) of stray dogs and the Gypsies do exist. However, it is a fact of life in Romania and not considered to be a major problem by locals who grew up and lived in these conditions all their lives. Nor is it anymore difficult to deal with as a tourist than the pick pockets I found in Rome, or the homeless I find in Los Angeles. Whenever I read a comment that is overwhelmingly good or bad, I discredit the whole comment as biased. I hope others do the same as well.

This film's title refers to the dogs that were left homeless in Bucharest, Romania when dictator Ceausescu decided to level the city and rebuild it in his vision. After years of unchecked breeding, these stray dogs number in the thousands. Director Thom Fitzgerald (The Hanging Garden) uses scenes of the dogs snarling and fighting as a metaphor for human behaviour. It's a bit heavy handed perhaps, but given the setting and nature of the story it seems appropriate enough. Fitzgerald weaves several plot lines together - an ineffectual dog-catcher (Mihai Calota) fears he will lose his job; a decadent ambassador (David Hayman) takes advantage of his position of power, while his pampered wife (Alberta Watson) begins to understand the crushing poverty that exists all around her and a pornographer (Fitzgerald) comes to town to search for inexpensive models to photograph. It's a complex narrative, and Fitzgerald almost manages to bring it all together. There is a feeling that shards of the story are left dangling and the themes of redemption that are sprinkled throughout seem a bit too tidy, but by an large it works. My main complaint is the casting of Fitzgerald in the lead role of the pornographer. He simply isn't a strong enough actor to convey the emotional arc that his character goes through. For the movie to work we must believe that this is a man who could make his living taking naked pictures of underage girls, and could then realize the evil of his ways and change into a decent guy. Fitzgerald simply never convinced me that there was a transformation happening internally - his performance is all surface. I found myself wondering what a more accomplished actor might do with this role. Don McKellar or Tom McCamus could have pulled this off, but I would have liked to seen Callum Keith Rennie take on the part. He has the toughness to make us believe he could be involved in something unsavoury and the acting chops show us the character's salvation. The Wild Dogs is still a powerful piece of work, just not as affecting as it could be.