We excitedly countdown to the 72nd Festival de Cannes with a different prize winning film each day.
Fehér isten / White God, 2014
Palm Dog Award – canine cast
Prix Un Certain Regard – Kornél Mundruczó
Kornél Mundruczó bypasses the disorder that often arises when skilled technicians as himself experiment by turning their eye to the natural world, by setting his experiment within a clear, identifiable genre framework. His tale of a sudden and brutal canine uprising in Budapest and the events which inspired it is designed, basically, like several similar thrillers. But the simple tweak of reimagining the oppressed-turned-oppressors as animals, endows this framework with tart layers of subtext, which Mundruczó is wholly willing to exploit.
It’s also an undeniable thrill, observing as the tyranny we can no longer deny that we impose upon ‘man’s best friend’ is exposed in the clearlight of day. If our humanity is best quantified by how we treat those more vulnerable than ourselves, this might be one of the most painfully humane picture ever made. White God is thus a rumination not on man vs. nature, but on man’s resolute urge to control nature. Thereby setting it into an unnatural state for which the only apparent remedy appears to be revolt.
It’s a vibrant rumination, and mostly entirely convincing – even the extensive scenes of animal interaction make total sense, Mundruczó wholly refusing to anthropomorphize the canine characters. These scenes, mostly dialogue-free, are the film’s most involving, and are performed with disarming skill by the cast of supremely talented dogs. In particular, leads Body and Luke (in the same role) make an enormously memorable impression, their range of full-body and facial expressions at the pinnacle of achievement among animal actors.
These are performances quite beyond proper human comprehension in the sheer complexity of requiring an animal to enact rehearsed, instructed tasks with a seeming spontaneous naturalism, and then to switch to an engendered ferocity. Such range would win Oscars were it displayed by a human performer.
It’s appropriate that the animals steal the show – Mundruczó argues that their ragged rebellion represents a genuine, natural order, not the stifling, supposedly straightforward one for which we humans are responsible. The clean, straight lines of an inner city junction, the elaborate mathematics of Liszt’s flamboyant Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2, all depicted as pompous exercises in futility, as the world we seek to suppress literally bursts through the seams of society and bleeds us dry.
Even Asher Goldschmidt’s score seems to allude toward the primal, in its driving beats and throbbing, minimalist basslines. Mundruczó, as a filmmaker, is a stylist foremost, though White God is perhaps his least vividly stylized film, though even here one appreciates the touch of a brilliant creative mind. Picture some Hollywood hack remaking this, and you’ll know what I mean.
The allegorical touch is stinging, and justly so, though perhaps too bluntly put. This is an excellent piece of craftsmanship across the board, but I was unable to entirely warm to it – I can appreciate the excellent performances of Mundruczó’s cast of dogs, but I cannot be persuaded of the comfort of the conditions under which they delivered such good work. Whether praised and rewarded or not, I do not buy into the notion that these animals enjoy the experience of appearing in films. The suffering on screen was just that bit too real for me.
