White God
Directed by Kornél Mundruczó
Hungary, 2014
Cornerhouse, 1 March 2015
Lili, along with her gentle dog Hagen, is sent to live with her father while her mother and new partner go gallivanting off to Australia for a few months.
Then her father gets rid of the dog – it’s an impure breed – and the two are separated. Thereby an intriguing film gets rolling: we see how the life of a teenage daughter of divorced parents in a post-Soviet country and a scavenging street dog (as Hagen becomes) follow parallel paths.
After a lot of shilly-shallying, the odd dollop of canine and human bonding, and an escalating horror (the dogs become upset at how they’re being treated, which is understandable), there’s a quietus ending outside a slaughterhouse.
An excellent film, White God easily has enough about it to sustain a second or third viewing. It’s kind of like The Lives of Others only with killer dogs.
And Budapest looks well worth a visit.
