Heart of a Dog

Laurie Anderson's Heart of a Dog is a heartfelt meditation on loss. There are certain critical assumptions when addressing a work by Ms. Anderson. Some are positive, her work displays a keen imagination and one can safely assume the musical contributions to this film were not an afterthought. Her work also displays a deadening chilliness and ironical detachment similar to what the late Paul Nelson noted in the works of Bowie and Kubrick. This aspect of her work is on display in Heart of a Dog when Anderson articulates the drift to a more authoritarian police state in the US since 9/11.

Happily, it is a fervent love that occupies the heart of this movie, made to commemorate Anderson's pooch, Lolabelle. The warmth of this film is what carries it over. Anderson employs a layered look for the film utilizing videos, stills, tons of drawings by the beloved canine, and various visual bric a brac. Anderson references everyone from Goya to Wittgenstein, but does not come off as a smarty pants this time because all 75 jam-packed minutes of this film are devoted to picturing a once living soul with warmth and humor. (3/27/17) 
at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)
  • High Time
    Blake Edwards' High Time  is a simple minded Bing Crosby vehicle that Edwards transforms into a pop tone poem of color and music. The st...
  • L'Eclisse
    Monica Vitti listens to the wind rustling through the trees in L'Eclisse Like Last Year at Marienbad , Michelangelo Antonioni's ...
  • The Rain People
    Shirley Knight and James Caan in The Rain People Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People , from  1969,  is a road movie that explores the...
  • Le Bonheur
                            Agnes Varda's Le Bonheur   (happiness or "the Good Hour"), from  1965 , is a skillful and accomplished...
  • Dante's Inferno
                  Henry Lachman's Dante's Inferno  is a structurally saggy vehicle for Spencer Tracy, his last film for Fox, that has so...