Thanks for the memories!

Boring

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Yes folks, Don't confound this feature speaking about wild dogs with Sam Fuller's WHITE DOG and speaking about the nearly same scheme. Both are masterpieces anyway.

I might as well say this upfront: it is extremely likely you won't make it through White God. An early scene where the main character's father slaughters a cow, guts and all, seems to exist simply to nauseate and warn the viewer before it gets to the realistic animal abuse.But if you can keep with it, White God will leave a mark on you.After Lili's father forcibly throws out her dog, Hagen, the dog is forced to survive on the streets, getting thrown between abusive people until he snaps and releases a shelter's worth of dogs, leading to the film's memorable climax.This is the kind of movie that spends a lot of time on dogs having serious moments. It's the kind of thing that sets itself up for failure, but works so well. Simple scenes like Hagen trying to cross a busy road, lying on a couch, or running down a road carry a lot of emotional power. I don't think it's fair to say that Body/Luke, the dogs playing Hagen, are good actors, but there is plenty of faith by the director that they can carry a scene, and they can, managing to keep up the movie's serious tone that feels like Homeward Bound remade for hard realism.But then the movie's climax hits and the tone changes, becoming more like a horror movie. And with Hagen's shift played throughout the movie, he is a perfect horror monster. He's frighteningly good at killing and maiming, while also never losing the viewers' sympathy. This sets up for the final scene between Lili and her fallen dog, which will very likely resonate with any dog-lover as much as the hard violence and abuse does.The movie does have a couple flaws. The camera-work, especially in the earlier parts, is overly shaky and made me nauseous at times. Every scene seems to have been filmed on a hand-held camera and it's hard to watch. Lili's plot line in the movie also feels like it's missing something. The young actress does a fine job, but she's left to do little but wander around aimlessly until Hagen shows up again. A good portion of her scenes could've been cut out without negatively affecting the movie.White God is a hard sell, but for those who make it through, it will have been worth it.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but with dogs. This Hungarian film about a dog uprising takes itself far too seriously and is pretty draggy throughout. When 13 year old Zsófia Psotta is forced to live with her father for a while while her mother is off teaching in Australia, she is not allowed to keep her beloved dog, Hagen. Her father (Sándor Zsótér) throws the dog out on the streets, and it experiences all sorts of horrors and humiliations until eventually it is able to escape, along with other abused dogs, from the pound's death row. The dogs then go on a vengeful rampage, and everyone who abused Hagen along the way feels their retribution. If this had been shorter and more exploitative, it might have been fun, but Mundruczó seems to think he has something to say (I mean, I suppose he does, about animal cruelty, but it's pretty straightforward and uninteresting). No, this isn't exploitation, it's art. It is actually quite good looking, and I'm impressed with the many animal scenes - it definitely had to have been a difficult shoot - but, all in all, it's pretty pointless.

I was scared of this film, mostly because I love dogs and I sympathize with them too much. Having that said, I really liked this film, because it shows a more human side to them, without dwelling into parody (like making them "talk" of performing antics just to entertain us), even though I think the depiction of the life stray dogs have is more tragic than what the film suggests, I am grateful the film didn't resort to the horrors of it.The parallelism with The Birds is very accurate in my opinion, the "invasion" and the effect it has on it's habitants is similar to what I can recall in TB. The acting was on point, specially the canines, even if at some points you could undoubtedly tell some of them were told to play dead, which kind off lessened the film but made them look extra cute...I wholeheartedly hope people, after watching this film, question themselves and discuss among them how are we treating dogs, and how we envision them within our family circle, are they just part of our furniture? Are they members of our family? I think they're the later and we should act accordingly.