Manual Para Atropelar Cachorro

Here's a dark humored story stripped of any political correctness that can only appeal to people who don't get offended easily; people who understand cinema and art; or the ones who have a similar frame of mind as the lead character Mojo. "Manual para Atropelar Cachorros" ("A Guide to Run Over Dogs") introduces a video store clerk (Rafael Primot) who leads a life of complete alienation while hating his job, falling in love with co-worker (Barbara Paz); but his sense of humanity gets lost due to his loneliness, contempt with the boring life he has and feeling trapped without other alternatives except drinking and hooking up with prostitutes. His real sense of relief is to get his car to hit and kill dogs. Yes, I said that. Here's a guy whose ultimate feeling of superior power is to hit dogs. The weird thing is not the act itself but it's that there isn't a "deeper" reasoning for it since he owns and likes dogs but when he's out of control he rides at night searching for dogs to kill.

And there's a whole thing revolving around dogs, prostitutes and the girl he likes that are all linked in his head (I won't use the word but there's an equal term he describes all of those mentioned figures).

Writer, director and lead actor of this short film made a highly controversial film that shoots its fire to everyone, from animal lovers to different races and sexual genders even though the main character always seem to apologize or make things lightly right after saying a negative remark about anyone different than him - once you live alienated you become like him in several ways, it's me vs. Them. There's a moment when he's driving at night which echoes and spoofs "Taxi Driver" with Mojo being an updated version of Travis Bickle coping with his hatred and loneliness with a jazzy soundtrack in the background. By that time, after seeing weird moments after another I got some sense of humor that was actually funny.

Despite the title and what it has to show, don't feel worried. There's no display of animal cruelty, those sequences are presented in animated sequences as if coming from a comic book - frame shots and sounds. Besides the humor, the darkness and some sense of realism (that kind of thing happens but we take it for nothing but cruelty), here's a short film that works as an amalgam for outsiders, outcast people who tried their best to provide something good to the world but since they haven't got nothing in exchange, feeling about their current pointless situation that they decide to go to extremes to feel a little less worthless. In Mojo's situation was the extreme of being a pet serial killer. As ethical human beings we definitely know he is repulsive and one could say the movie has nothing to offer.

Oh it has. It shows a variation of life in a strange fashion but one that can be understood, and there's humored bits specially when he's working at the video store and has crazy dreams at the same time he forgets to deal with customers - which includes a cameo from famed film critic Rubens Ewald Filho as an irate costumer who keeps asking Mojo if he's gonna take his order or not. Hysterical. 8/10

I'd like to dedicate this review to Rubens - who passed away yesterday- a great film critic and my first reference in knowing what a film critic is and his constant presence on TV, awards coverage and written reviews. Without him, I wouldn't be here writing about this movie (which I just discovered) and many others in previous years. More than just a film critic, he also wrote books, TV series, acted in some films and even directed plays. I've had a brief encounter with him and it was truly great, he was nice and humble, hard qualities to find on people in show business. Be at peace, monsieur!