I saw Lek and the Dogs at the Electric Palace Cinema in Hastings
on Friday evening. It is based on the true story of Ivan Mishukov, who left his abusive home at four and lived with street dogs for two years before being picked up and put into children's homes. His transition into adulthood seemed to work for a while but he was unable to sustain it.
The film was quite an experience. A friend of mine, who had seen it
in London, asked me on Facebook what my review of the film was. My immediate reply was:
“Great apart from a tad too much not entirely convincing crying from
Lek, and the tiresome, smugly dogmatic (no pun intended) philosophising. The
film would have been much more effective by cutting out that guy entirely....
that's my review! :)
As a pithy and amusing comment it works but the film bugged
me and kept bugging me. So I looked at the published reviews to see if any of
them reflected what my own reaction had been.
I found a lot of reviews. All of them stuck to pretty much
the same format but not always in the same order: a plot synopsis, varying
degrees of sycophancy and a focus on cinematic form and reference, literary and
philosophical influences and assessing where the body of work fits in director Andrew
Kötting’s
oeuvre. There was a fair range of opinion on these things and not everybody
enjoyed the experience. The BBC’s film critic Mark Kermode obviously did. This
film is right up his street. He was going to find several avenues of
pleasure in this movie and he did. So far, so predictable. To be fair, however, he did also say (as did
others) that what people took from this film would be entirely personal. That is
absolutely the case but then again is that not the case with any film or work of art?
There seemed to be very little about the actual content -
the emotional content I mean - and surely it is the story and the trauma and how those emotions are conveyed that is the point here. Introducing the film at the Electric Palace, Andrew
Kötting
said that he wanted people to feel these things. That is commendable enough but
it makes an assumption that the audience are strangers to such feelings and the
director is therefore providing a service to allow them to understand trauma at
a safe distance. Often it seemed as if the
director was ‘bludgeoning’ his audience (a word used in more than one review) to
emote, and to feel pain. In that respect the film is very much of its time.
Public displays of trauma: parents of murdered children, victims of violence, abuse,
terror - trauma as spectacle seems to be a news requirement these days.
Mainstream film reviewers are obviously not keeping up although a couple of the reviews mentioned the word ‘emotional’. The
problem was that none of them really communicated any and what I wanted to know was how the film made them feel and what they thought of the subject.
Perhaps it is in the nature of ‘educated’ reviewers to not go there. They retain that vague sense of contempt for public expression of emotion but it’s fine if it’s either fiction, or cinematised ‘truth’ that can be glossed over in an analysis of the form in which it is presented. The reality of the story effectively becomes secondary to the package in which it comes.
Perhaps it is in the nature of ‘educated’ reviewers to not go there. They retain that vague sense of contempt for public expression of emotion but it’s fine if it’s either fiction, or cinematised ‘truth’ that can be glossed over in an analysis of the form in which it is presented. The reality of the story effectively becomes secondary to the package in which it comes.
I could not access the pay to read reviews but the available
quotes suggested they were much the same content-wise, if more critical of the
film overall. The most succinct and effective review was probably Eye for Film’s,
Amber Wilkinson who avoided the verbiage and managed to tell you everything you
needed to know without actually losing sight of Lek - the film’s subject.
What I found most strange and disturbing is what appears to
be the complete disconnect between telling and reviewing a tale of childhood
trauma, without understanding just how triggering that can be for audience
members who have suffered childhood trauma. The director joked that walkouts had
previously occurred perhaps because people thought they were coming to see Show
Dogs or Isle of Dogs. The muted ripple of laughter in the room was muted I
suspect because half of this audience didn’t have a clue what either of these
films were.
I am sure that some of the walkouts have been because the rawness of it has been too overwhelming for those
who don’t have the luxury of understanding trauma at a distance. In fact I am
not sure it is possible to understand trauma at a distance.
The audio-visual noise may be another reason people
walk out. It was phenomenally loud, intense and often distorted. For people who
do not find peace at the centre listening to industrial noisecore, I can see
why the soundtrack could present not only emotional challenges, but physical, aural discomfort as well.
The difficult thing for me to take in this film, however, was the philosophising
drone that effectively concluded you’re fucked. Your trauma will inform your
actions in endless repetitive cycles and there’s no escape. Such a message is potentially
devastating. People who have been traumatised are painfully aware that it is
still informing their actions. They have been forced to understand it and
forced to find ways to alleviate that cycle in order to survive both
emotionally and physically. The glibness of this single, simplistic, philosophical
overdub, threatened to reduce a complex and quite remarkable piece of cinema to
a smug, undergraduate observation. Because of this I couldn’t help feeling that Lek/Ivan had actually
been a bit dissed by having his story and his trauma used to conveniently park a
philosophy that does neither Lek, nor actually the film, justice.
However, I am seeing this film as a standalone piece. In the context of the
trilogy perhaps there is a wider angle. At least the humour kicked in as
the (cruelly) paraphrased drone continued … yer’ all
gonna die, the planet’s gonna die. No shit Sherlock!
We live in an age of anxiety, dystopia and fear masked by increasingly
absurd levels of pretence that we are all unique and heroic individuals who can
make a difference. We are simultaneously more empathetic and quicker to shut
down. We are all one of Lek’s crowd on the street desperate
for recognition. With no certainty about what we are supposed to be recognised
for, or who is supposed to be doing the recognising, we are constantly recalibrating our identities just to feel comfortable. Going underground is not an option we have.
It is an exhausting time in
which to live. The film communicates this, at times in a profoundly beautiful way
but it is the beauty of Lek himself that you should be taking home with you.
Links:
BFI Interview with Andrew Kotting
Hattie Naylor
First dramatisation of Ivan Mishukov's story, which formed the foundation of this film, was Hattie Naylor's play 'Ivan and the Dogs'.
Xavier Tchili
Actor - Lek (hard to find info and this is out of date but has some biographical content).
Lek and the Dogs twitter feed
'Rotten Tomatoes' review list
Lek and the Dogs twitter feed
'Rotten Tomatoes' review list
