White God – Rise of the Planet of the Dogs

Directed and written by Kornel Mundruczo. Produced by Eszter Gyarfas and Viktoria Petranyi. Release date: March 27, 2015.

Okay, so maybe it’s not quite “Rise of the Planet of the Dogs,” but that’s only because White God‘s filmmakers decided not to take it in that direction, instead settling for a less violent ending. I suppose a better description might be “Spartacus, by way of Samuel Fuller.” Regardless, you’ve probably figured out what the film is about by now, but if you haven’t, here we go.

Lili (Zsofia Psotta) is forced to live with her father, Daniel (Sandor Zsoter) for a few months while her mother goes on a trip. Her parents are divorced, you see. Lili’s best friend is a dog, Hagen, which Daniel does not want living in his home. In Hungary, we learn, there’s an additional fee imposed on mixed-breed dogs, and Daniel has no intention of paying. Lili doesn’t want to take her dog to the shelter, where she fears it will be put down, so Daniel instead stops in the middle of the road, releases it, and drives away. Yes, it’s a heartbreaking scene, given that we’ve seen how much Lili loves Hagen.

Following that, we trail Hagen as he wanders the streets. The trials and tribulations he faces will force some viewers to turn away, and others will outright quit watching. If you’re someone who can’t stomach animal abuse on any level – even keeping in mind that no animals were hurt in the making of the film – then White God is not the film for you. Sure, you don’t actually get to see a whole lot of the violence, but it’s still not an easy watch. By the end of it, Hagen has been transformed, and by the time he begins to lead the dog uprising – not a spoiler, since the film’s opening scene shows this and then sends us back in time to let us see how we got here – you get it.

We get to watch both Hagen and Lili, sometimes flipping back and forth between the two at the drop of a hat. Hagen, trying to survive on the street, all while being mistreated by basically everyone he meets, and Lili, struggling to deal with the shock of settling into a new home with someone she doesn’t particularly like after losing her best friend. Even outside of the animal abuse, White God isn’t an easy watch. And that’s before you start to think about the allegory here, which sees dogs stand in either for the homeless or those racially discriminated against, with the humans acting as the cruel people who mistreat both groups.

It’s an odd thing to say, but I wish that White God both went further and also scaled back, although in different areas. Where I wished it went further is in the dog uprising portion, which comes to a thematically appropriate but dramatically anticlimactic conclusion. Where it needed to tone itself back is in the scenes focused on the dogs taking revenge on the people who have mistreated them over the course of the film. White God becomes like a B-grade creature feature and as such is impossible to take seriously, even though it presents itself with as straight a face as possible. It’s the one point at which it missteps, and it’s unfortunate that this happens at such a crucial point in time.

Still, that’s nowhere near enough to ruin the film. You’ll care for Hagen and his dog compatriots, you’ll feel for Lili, even if she is kind of annoying – she’s acting out because she doesn’t know what else to do with her emotions – and then you can hate everyone else for how awfully they treat the canines. That’s emotion that you feel while watching White God, which is a significant improvement over the utter indifference that most films leave you with.

White God was reportedly created without any use of CGI, which makes the acting done by the dogs even more impressive, as they weren’t helped any by computers. Hagen, credited to two dogs (Body and Luke), might just be the best movie-dog ever. It’s staggering to see what Hagen has to do over the course of the film, and that the filmmakers could get him to do it is almost unbelievable. Coordinate that with a ton of other dogs – there may be over 100 on-screen at one time in a few scenes – and you’ve got a film that sounds as if it could only work as a graphic animated film like Watership Down, and yet it gets pulled off here. That’s just downright impressive. Add in strong human performances from Zsofia Psotta and Sandor Zsoter, and you’ve got a very good film.

A poignant, distressing, and difficult watch, White God is the type of movie that doesn’t leave your mind for a long time after you see it. Its depictions of abuse, its heartbreaking story, and its strong acting help make it a powerful film. It’s tough to take seriously once the “canine uprising” scenes begin, and its finale is a touch anticlimactic, but that doesn’t make its themes less touching or the movie as a whole not worth watching. White God is a great movie.

Bottom Line: White God is an impressive film both on a practical level and a thematic one.

Recommendation: Unless you literally cannot stomach any sort of animal abuse – even if most of it is implied – White God is a film to see.

[rating=4]

If you want more of Matthew “Marter” Parkinson, you can follow him on the Twitter @Martertweet and check out his weekly movie podcast.