Dog Days
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C- Film: C+
Ulrich
Seidl tries to make six plots add up in Dog
Days (2001), one of many such films being made recently, this time set in Austria.
The best of such films have been pulled off by the likes of Robert
Altman, Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson at their best. Seidl previously only made documentaries and
his resulting attempt is mixed.
One
storyline about a boyfriend abusing his girlfriend is featured at the
beginning, but is not as prominent as it should be, as there is more to say
about it than any of the other storylines present. One brings us to a group sex club, and the
film has bold nudity throughout, if not always having a point or context. The club is just graphic enough to be on the
NC-17 side. The idea is an attempt to
show how miserable life is, especially when it is literally hot, but this is no
Do The Right Thing (Spike Lee,
1989). People also suddenly sing out
loud often, but that does not make this Magnolia
(P.T. Anderson, 1999) either, but seems like often trivial filler. This is never with musical accompaniment and
is no send up of the Hollywood Musical.
This especially happens when a female hitchhiker seems damned and
determined to drive everyone she picks up slowly crazy with inappropriate
questions, comments and actions, like she is inviting a physical altercation.
Some of
the debates seem trite, reflecting the boredom of the characters. You can have a film where none of the
characters are sympathetic and still work (Stephen Frears’ The Grifters from 1990).
This extends to the sexual encounters, which all seem unwise from a
common sense level downward. These lives
are so gutted out that the viewer asks: Can
they really blame this behavior on the weather?
With that
said, you can tell that this takes a great deal of suspended disbelief to see
in the first place, but it has been different enough to win awards. Comparisons to the Dogme 95 movement are
unfair, since it is above that, but I do not remember this level of abuse going
on constantly between the characters.
The trick is to not wallow in it when shooting it if you are trying to
make a point, but that never happens. Dog Days is not for everyone, but is
far from mainstream filmmaking in any country, so it at least has that to
offer.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image has the kind of grain and rawness you
would expect form a documentary filmmaker and cinematographer Wolfgang Thaler
certainly delivers this fir Seidl. The
transfer is very good at capturing this, but has to be graded lower because of
the original camera work. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo does not offer any Pro Logic-type surrounds, yet the film
was supposedly issued in Dolby Digital 6.1 matrixed EX. Though this DVD does not offer that, I doubt
it had much of that kind of activity to offer.
The only extras are the trailer and a 2:56 segment where Seidl actually
tries to explain himself, which was unintentionally amusing.
The final
point is to ask about is the mental stability of the characters, which is mixed
at best, insane at worst. Again, I doubt
the weather is the reason, and I never saw a good argument that it was the
weather that happened to set them off, and it is amazing how many storylines
were unresolved. I do not need closure,
but a point and purpose would have been nice.
Dog Days is not for everyone,
but it is still finding an audience.
Good for them.
- Nicholas Sheffo
