My Life as a Dog (1985)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Ingemar is on the cusp of adolescence. It is the late 1950s Sweden. When the opening scene showed Ingemar on the beach amusing his mother with some childish antics, I was primed for a happy coming-of-age story. But then it is revealed that Ingemar is living at home with his mother who has tuberculosis. This sets the theme of the movie, just when you think things might be looking up for Ingemar, darker issues arise.Anton Glanzelius, who plays Ingemar, embodies a perfect combination of imp and winsomeness. He can cause adults grief with his trouble-making, but much of the time it is his innocence that gets him into trouble, like the time he has a small fire going in a trash dump that gets out of control, or the time he is suckered into an embarrassing prank at school. He has some odd behaviors, like approaching his milk glass with trepidation as if were one of life's great challenges to drink from it.When Ingemar becomes too much for his mother to handle he is sent to a small village down south to live with his uncle's family. This village has more than its share of eccentrics, like an older guy who is constantly repairing his roof, or the uncle's father who asks Ingemar to read to him from the lingerie section of a catalog. Much of the footage at the uncle's is gentle humor interspersed with typical trials of growing up. But then the mother dies. And so it goes.Ingemar has a delightful philosophical bent. As one way to deal with life's challenges he frequently tries to comfort himself by thinking that things could be worse. He keeps meditating on Laika, the dog that the Soviets sent into space in 1957, the first living animal sent up. In thinking of Laika, Ingemar comments, "You have to compare, so you can keep perspective. It helps to keep a little distance." He frets over the thought that Laika was sent into space knowing that he would most certainly starve to death. Maybe Ingemar sensed a wider metaphorical meaning--in some sense we are all shot into space at birth only ultimately to suffer the fate of certain death. The main musical theme perfectly captures the melancholic mood; its memory is one of the things that drew me to re-watch this after having first seen it over twenty years ago.

This is one of the most touching, challenging, downright delightful movies I've seen. It is a portrayal of the coming of age of a young trouble maker whose life is in disrepair. His mother has been victimized by disease and she has this incorrigible little boy whom she loves but can't control. He is suffering from no love and seeks it out where he can. He is the paragon of attention deficit disorder. The movie isn't morose, however. He is genuinely funny and loving when he has the chance to be. He is sent to live with relatives where his life opens up and he begins to have purpose. He is given some latitude and begins to develop a real life. Unfortunately, there are events going on around him that will impact him, including the continuing deterioration of his mother's health and the little dog he left behind. He has so little power in his life as is the case with most little boys, and at times he tries to hard. One delightful connection is a young girl who is a better athlete than the boys in the town. There is this sexual tension that takes place as she matures and begins to fall for him. It is happy and sad and has a lovely message about grasping life whenever we can. See this.

A mischievous young boy with a Puckish smile, unusual table manners, and a sympathetic kinship to Laika the Soviet astro-dog is sent by his ailing mother to live with relatives in the country, where he discovers a town full of people even more eccentric than himself. Director Lasse Hallstrom's popular Swedish import offers a refreshing look at the mysteries and heartbreak of adolescence, with all the charm but none of the cloying sentiment of other, similar coming-of-age films. The rich humor is drawn around an affectionate portrait of small town life, closely observed; the pain comes from the realization that young Ingmar's bedridden mother has already passed away. The pace is often lazy and the film is overlong, but Hallstrom's understanding of human idiosyncrasies is reminiscent of a Jacques Tati comedy, choosing to laugh with instead of at his characters. It's a memorable look at love and mortality, as seen from the innocent eyes of a boy passing through that awkward age when he begins thinking like an adult while still unable to stop acting like a child.

I am dumbfounded as to the reason this film caught flattering attention. I love foreign and art house, and I know why it caught my attention: I watch anything. But I actually stopped watching this tepid tragedy due to disinterest, waited a few days and re-played it, this time all the way through. Despite it's promising subject matter this script is far from adventurous; the boy learns nothing from his experiences and the townspeople are no more eccentric than your average Swede. Due to a miscast of the lead character (he is 12 years old, but the actor seems about 9) the sexual encounters he has are borderline creepy. There could have been a deeper, lost metaphor between the loss of his dog and his thoughts of his dying mother, but if so, it was either lost in translation or wound up on the cutting room floor.If you want an excellent film that tackles looming death or losing a loved one rent "Autumn Spring" or Hallstrom's better venture, "The Shipping News". Hmmm, Death. That reminds me. I was less bored watching the walking scene in "Gerry". Rent that too.