Heart of a Dog (1988)

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

No words to describe this movie because it genius and fantastic! I recommend it for everybody! Must see from 10 y.o. and older. Need to read M.A.Bulgakov before. So I don't now what to write more, just cite: Despite its short size, this book has endless layers. On the surface, it is a hilariously sad story about a science experiment gone very wrong in the direction that its creator did not quite anticipate, and all the funny antics of the newly created sorta-human Sharikov. Yes, that includes obsessive and funny cat-chasing even when the dog becomes "human". On the other level, it is a cautionary warning about what happens when power falls in the hands of those who should not be allowed to yield it, and the dangers and pitfalls of the system that allows that to happen. Yes, that includes an easy step from killing cats to pointing guns at real people, and demanding sex in exchange for keeping a job, and of course the ultimate evil that was to penetrate the fabric of the years to come - writing denunciations for little else than petty personal gains.

How things change -- Mikhail Bulgakov's story "Heart of a Dog" couldn't be published in 1925 due to its implied criticism of the Bolsheviks of the time, but by the waning years of the Soviet Union, it was made into this lavish two-part adaptation for state television. On almost all counts it's a very good one, shot using monochrome photography which both allows genuine 1920s footage to be cut in a various points for effect, and compliments the very effective and bleak recreation of the era that the film achieves. "Heart of a Dog" is a marriage of absurdism and satire, and one thing that the film does very well is employ the absurdist technique of contrasting a potentially goofy idea (dog becomes a man) with deadly serious execution for maximum effect. Even more than the book, I felt, Bortko's film made excellent use of bleak scenes of the difficult winter street Sharik has come out of and the unsmiling revolutionaries in the building to create contrast an enhance the effect of the conceit. The actors deserve praise, especially Vladimir Tolokonnikov as the morose voice of Sharik, and later the dissipated Sharikov. One important thing, I thought, was missed in the translation from novel to film. In the text, a key element of the satire is that Sharik is a simpleminded and basically decent dog that only becomes a rake due to the influence of humanity. Here that point is blunted somewhat because his pre-humanity personality doesn't come through as strongly in the visual medium, despite the few segments of narration.

One of the best screen versions of a great book I've ever seen. The acting is superb! The film is full of bitter satire on the first years of the communist regime and shows its stupidity and utter cruelty. I hardly believed that Bulgakov could be put on the screen with such a delicacy as to preserve the subtle hints and political/satiric subtext that characterizes many of the cultural masterpieces of the communist era. The casting is fantastic and every actor is irreplaceable. The film has reached the status of a cult movie very quickly and many phrases from it have become a part of the modern Russian language. A must see!

This movie (and yes, it's a movie - it was shot as a two-parter, but the two parts together come down to slightly more than 2 hours) is one of the unsung masterpieces of world cinema. A very well-mannered, and yet at the same time absolutely savage denunciation of the Soviet regime and the type of person who flourished under it, the film is a faithful adaptation of the long-banned eponymous book by Mikhail Bulgakov. The sets are flawless, and the director made the brilliant decision to film in monochrome sepia, adding a feel of authenticity where a late-80s washed-out color incarnation would have all but ruined the film. I won't say much about the plot, which deserves to be discovered by the viewer himself, but the performances are true Oscar material; special mentions go out to E. Evstigneev, who plays the old professor with such presence, gravitas and kind wisdom that with barely a word or a gesture, he ends up stealing every scene he's in. The second, of course, is Creature/Sharikov, who, played to horrifying perfection by V. Tolokonnikov, is by far more frightening a character than Hannibal Lecter, because not only does he exist in real life - entire countries have been ran by men like him throughout history, with all that ensues.While it's a socio political allegory, it is worth mentioning that the movie is also brimming with humor, albeit dark - there are many outright comedies which haven't made me laugh as much as this film. What's more, when laughing at this movie, the feeling is not only one of hilarity but of understanding and agreement, which is always a plus.There is hardly a complaint I have with this movie - the only slight flaw is the tone of intellectual/bourgeois snobbery I caught at times from the "enlightened" characters. But that's a minor quibble.Sadly, this film appears to have been bypassed by Western licensing companies. It's a crying shame that one of the all-round best movies out there is languishing unrestored and untranslated (which shouldn't be incredibly hard - though all the cultural references and the revolutionary terminology will necessarily fade in translation, the film's main themes should be accessible to all). While we're waiting with our fingers crossed for the Criterion edition, I'm considering creating English subtitles myself. Will see how that works out.