White God — director Kornel Mundruczo (Hungary)
The state here bans free running dogs and taxes mongrels. So 13-year-old Lili (Zsofia Psotta) is heartbroken when her (separated but briefly custodian) father expels her best friend, her dog Hagen (Luke and Body). Bolstered by her faith in love, she sets out to find him and he tries to find her. The film follows Hagen’s adventures in the nightmarish city, his encounters with cruel humans and with other wild dogs. (Lassie Come Home this ain’t. Till the end, maybe.) Hagen leads the wild dog pack in an attack against the city that abused them (Budapest).
Questions to consider
- What’s the point of the film’s flashback structure? The body of the film works around to the opening scene. Why start with that shot? What does Lili's coming down a bridge mean?
- Why does the film’s first shot open silent?
- Why Lili’s and Hagen’s opening tug of war?
- What do their names suggest?
- Why is Lili characterized as moving from disobedient and sullen through criminal to ... what?
- Why is her father a slaughterhouse meat inspector? What’s the point of his having been a professor?
- Define the trajectory of Lili’s relationship with her dad.
- How does the father’s ID lanyard read in context?
- How does the film relate to the opening quote from Rilke: “Everything terrible is something that needs our love.” Is it?
- What’s the point of the TV clip of the Tom and Jerry cartoon Cat Concerto?
- Why does Hagen move from family, to banishment, then slavery, then a brutal collective and finally….?
- How does the intercutting of specific scenes of Lili and of Hagen establish parallels or contrasts? e.g., her rehearsal with his training to fight; his fight with her club party and bust; her concert with his jailbreak; etc.
- How are the dogs characterized? Why? Are the dogs just dogs?
- Why the literally dog’s eye view? Why the opening and closing high angle shots (i.e., bird's or god's eye view)?
- Do you think there might be a political reading of this film? Religious? Ecological?
- What does the closing fade to black mean?
- What does the flame-thrower signify?
- Did you notice the restaurant owner’s Ben Laden poster?
- Why is it titled White God?
- Is there some point in the director specifically playing the Afghan who sells Hagen to the brute? What’s the effect of knowing that?
- Where are the humans herd-like? Where/why so authoritarian?
- How is Budapest depicted?
- Where would you place this on the spectrum from animal cartoon to traditional Aesopian fable? Or does its realism put it off that scale completely?
- What may be specifically Hungarian about this film (language and music apart)?
- How do you read the last shot? In relation to the first? Does the word “submission” spring to mind? Might the fact “Islam” means “submission” be at all pertinent?
- Is that last shot a happy ending or a brief lull? Have Lili and Hagen recovered their lost closeness?
- What do the school band and music signify?
- Why the references to Wagner’s Tannhuauser? Does it go beyond the theme of the redemptive power of love and God’s forgiveness?
Consider the implication of these lines:
- “So you’ve tripped up the ladder.”
- “That’s fit to consume.”
- “No kiss?”
- “Your dog is not a Hungarian dog.”
- “You’re going to fuckin work for me.”
- “You’ve grown up.” [Translation: I’ve lost one I loved.]
- “The dogs are not acting like dogs but like a well organized army.”
- “They’re not after the meat.”
- “Give them a little more time.”
No comments:
Post a Comment