Black Dog – Cannes 2024 (Film Review)
3 min read
Still Courtesy - Playtime
After directing one of the most influential international blockbuster hits of the pandemic era, sixth-generation Chinese filmmaker Guan Hu has returned to the director's chair with a completely different filmmaking outlook. Unlike The Eight Hundred, where Guan equipped his crew with an abundance of IMAX cameras to reconcile with the heroism of the Second Sino-Japanese War; his solo follow-up feature deals with a different timeline of Chinese history. In Black Dog, Guan illustrates a world literally gone to the dogs. Set in a north-western municipality, located a walking distance away from the Gobi desert, the desolate landscapes are distracted by the nostalgia, fears, desires, and displacement of the community's commonwealth. As mass-advertisement campaigns raucously promote the nation's prosperous investments in the regional Olympic games, the residents fall prey to the rapid growth & industrialization of China's changing face. Endless buildings and homes face state-sponsored demolitions; as the owners of the properties leave behind their canine companions in the wake of the economy.
Guan's feature is purposefully transitional; zoning into the impermanence of the liminal landscape. Black Dog appropriately frames the economic structures in the background of its formulaic tale of reconciliation. The backdrop of the era amplifies the collective disparity and survivalist lifestyle of minority communities — co-existing with the mass capturing & abandonment of neighbouring mutts. The cinematic contrast regarding the depictions of underdevelopment illuminates through the subconscious of the film's protagonist Lang; a man seeking reconciliation after a murderous incident. A decade passes in his incarcerated absence. The film's emphasis on time & countdowns are integral to the emotional stakes at the helm of the conflict. Thus, Black Dog moves at a brisk metronomic pace. The camera continuously observes and rediscovers memories once reconciled within the impoverished districts. Nothing lasts forever, as Guan dictates his timeline of events through the motif of cycles.
Revenge evolves into remorse, death transitions into rebirth, and a growling enemy becomes man's best friend. Black Dog's harrowing heights include an extraordinary solar eclipse sequence, accompanied by a killer Pink Floyd track. As the sun shines bright in the path of totality, the animals of the Gobi Desert peruse the empty boroughs. A tiger roams the streets, a monkey scours through an abandoned office complex, a camel walks through the debris of a demolished building, an ostrich stands by a piano — all while an elderly neighbor rests in his comfy lawn-chair. The stray dogs frantically scurry at the sight of the natural phenomena. Interconnectivity reigns in the natural order. A new life begins, the cycle restarts. Unfortunately, Guan insists on continuing his narrative past the perfect conclusion; prolonging and re-iterating the same philosophies in the process. Black Dog is afraid to let go of its characters; refusing to conform with a finale that encapsulates the ambiguity and strangeness of life-itself.
Accompanying the lackluster finale, Guan's male-gaze simmers through the incorporation of a meandering circus subplot. Guan's narrative detour relishes in the exploitation of a manic-pixie dream girl. In these scenes, Black Dog spoon-feeds expositional dialogue to the viewer; deviating from the visual-based observations in tandem with the marginalisation of the land. The presence of the subplot favors impressionless interiority. The lackadaisical and conventional screenwriting feels derivative of the work of Jia Zhangke; a renowned political filmmaker, who so happens to play a significant authoritative role in the film. The microcosm of industrialist meditations only scratches the surface of Guan's thesis — as Black Dog loudly barks its philosophical themes to its weary viewers.
