Writer(s): Mundruczó, Viktória Petrányi, and Kata Wéber
Starring: Zsófia Psotta, Sándor Zsótér, Lili Horváth, Bodie & Luke
There are people on one end of a spectrum that take their love of animals a little bit too far, revering them and valuing their lives moreso than those of most humans. Usually, their argument is something along the lines of “Animals are pure and sweet and know nothing but love, while humans are vile, violent creatures.” I would know this firsthand; I married a woman like this. And yes, she is still my wife. She stops in her tracks any time she sees a stray dog, and will only relax upon seeing that its owner is nearby, and she would be the person that would break the glass of a car to rescue an animal left out in extreme heat or cold (and she has come very close to doing this already). Needless to say if it ever came down to a situation where she could only save my life, or our dog’s, I would be very, very nervous.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have people that admire
their pets, but are of the mindset that they are nothing more than
animals. They love them and take care of
them, maybe even treat them like part of the family, but they wouldn’t hesitate
to get rid of them under the right circumstances; such as putting them down
rather than paying for a costly procedure that only has a small percentage of
succeeding. I would snugly fit into this
category.
As with many different viewpoints, oftentimes people from
one side can’t see eye-to-eye on people with the other. I can speak from experience that I get
annoyed every time my wife drives by a stray dog, then has to turn back around
to see where it’s going and who, if anyone, is watching after it (thankfully,
these moments are rare, but they have happened). Likewise, my wife can’t understand how in the
world I see my dog as “just an animal”, which he is. I love him, I’ll pet him, I’ll play with him,
and I’ll even be sad when he’s gone, but it won’t pack the same emotional punch
for me as if a human friend or relative died—my wife, on the other hand, will
absolutely lose it when that day invariably comes.
I’m rambling on with a purpose, and that is to say that White God has not only shown me what it would be like to share my wife’s
viewpoint; for two hours, it put me in her shoes. I was seething at many of the film’s
powerful, and all-too-realistic (altruistic?) scenes of animal cruelty. I cheered when the animals finally got their
revenge. And, dare I say, by the end, I
was so overwhelmed, with so many different, sometimes conflicting emotions,
that I teared up. To put that into
perspective, I don’t ever tear up.
One of White God’s main strengths is in the simplicity of
its story: Girl has dog. Girl gets sent to live with father for three
months. Father doesn’t like dog. Father gets rid of dog. Dog goes through hardships. Girl looks for dog. Dog looks for girl. That basically summarizes the entire movie;
but what no amount of words can possibly summarize, is the thrill you get from
watching it. This is an expertly-made
Frankenmovie crafted out of wildly disparate parts: It’s part Milo and Otis, part human/animal drama, part
coming-of-age film, and part revenge thriller.
That any of these things fit together at all is shocking; that they all
somehow manage to combine to form a single, powerful narrative is nothing short
of a minor miracle.
I won’t reveal too much of the story; this is one of those
movies that can best be enjoyed the less you know going in. There aren’t really any twists or turns that
can be ruined—the whole movie actually plays out pretty much the way you know
it’s going to play out, straight from the outset—but the “fun” of this movie is
just putting it on, strapping yourself in, and letting it take you along for
the ride.
That “ride” certainly is a bit overlong: clocking in at
almost exactly two hours, there are certainly a few scenes that could have been
excised without losing any of the film’s raw power. Lili, the main girl (played by Zsofia
Psotta), is also a little stiff, and doesn’t really show much range in her
performance; this is a girl who is so attached to her dog that she refuses to
leave its side (even taking it to band practice, at one point, because she has
nowhere else to go), and yet the highest peak of her emotional performance is
“mild irritation.” It doesn’t feel very
authentic, nor does it do much to suck you in to the human side of the story.
But ultimately that’s okay, because White God is all about
the dogs. All 250+ of them, gathering
together to defy authority and exact revenge on all the humans that had done
them wrong. These sequences pack an even
greater emotional punch when you realize that all of the dogs in the movie, are
REAL (none computerized), and everything was shot live. Even more astonishing? All of the dogs used in the movie were rescue
dogs who, previous to the movie, were never trained. The trainers, lead by one Teresa Ann Miller,
also deserve a lot of credit for their role in the movie, whipping the dogs
(figuratively, of course), including Bodie and Luke, who took turns playing
Hagen, into filming shape in just five short months.
If you are an absolute animal lover (as my wife is), you
will have a hard time getting through it (she refused to even try): There are many scenes of rather graphic
animal cruelty, and a large number of dogs die in the film. However, these sequences are what help to make
the ending so satisfying; without them, this movie wouldn’t pack half the
emotional resonance that it does. I love
revenge films, but even the best of them have never affected me in this
way—despite the fact I was sitting in my living room, completely alone, I
cheered and hollered as the dogs picked off the objects of their suffering,
one-by-one, typically in gory fashion.
It’s an unbelievable sequence, but after the carnage is over, it still
manages to elicit tears with one of the best final scenes in recent
memory. As with just about any scene in
any movie, it won’t work for some—I could see where some might find it
incredibly cheesy—but I thought it was absolutely perfect, and I had chills
running down my spine as the credits began to run.
RECAP: White God jumps between so many genres and
subgenres you would think its failures are all but guaranteed; yet the expert
direction (by Kornél Mundruczó), along with several powerful sequences, make
this one of the best, and most unique, revenge thrillers of all time. I found the acting (especially from Lili) to
be a little underwhelming, and there are definitely several minutes that could
have been excised without affecting the movie’s raw emotions, but overall, this
is required viewing for all but the most emotional animal lover. It’s certainly not an easy watch, but to
merely say the payoff is “worth it” is the understatement of the century. Highly recommended.
RATING: 9/10
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