The Plague Dogs (1982) was produced/directed by Martin Rosen, the same man who made the film adaptation for Watership Down. Both Watership Down and The Plague Dogs are novels of author Richard Adams. So basically I can tell you this now, if you have seen either Watership Down or The Plague Dogs, you can expect a similar style in both of them. Both are tales of animals struggling through life, fighting off man and beast.
Plague Dogs (I'm dropping the 'the' for my convenience) is your typical tale of man vs beast, or rather beast vs man. Rowf (the black lab) and Snitter (the fox terrier) are lab test animals that finally break out. The rest of the movie chronicles their survival against humans and their own need for food. That's basically it in a nutshell. It reminds me of Grave of the Butterflies, in that the draw of the film is just hoping that the heroes will make it by the end. Once I reached the conclusion I also noticed some connections to The Road. Two heroes who must fight to stay alive by killing bad guys or finding food. You are driven to watch because you connect with the characters and you and they hope that the next hill will have salvation.
But there is none. This is Plague Dogs after all. Where Watership Down has its low points, it also has a fair share of high points where the main characters finally succeed and live peacefully. Plague Dogs has none of that. Even when they finally manage to find food it is only ripped from them or it has the feeling of being too good to be true. When a movie starts and within the span of less that five minutes you have seen two dogs die, you know its going to be a rough ride. However the death and violence in Plague Dogs is not the same as in my previous review of Felidae, where violence felt more shocking. In Plague Dogs the violence feels right because it is justified in a way. As Rowf says, they needed to become animals like their ancestors, it is kill or be killed. They need to kill the farm animals in order to survive. Also, a lot of the real violence happens off screen, usually in a character jumping over a rock or fence to do the deed.
Technically, Plague Dogs is very good. The animation isn't smooth, but their attention to detail on the dogs reaction to events is spot on. Similar to Felidae, Plauge Dogs give the animals human dialogue, but their actions are very animal-like. Example: Rowf pees on a tree and discusses with Snitter about where they will go next now that they have escaped, then as soon as he moves Snitter pees on the same spot. In another scene a farmer tries to call Snitter over to him. Like a real dog Snitter hesitates, but since he's interested he slowly works his way toward him. However, in dog fashion, he stops to sniff a tree and doesn't make a B-line right too him.
I was both impressed with the background art as I was sick of it. Overall its all very painterly, which is nice, but its all very muddy. All the rocks look the same and dull (maybe that's how they look in that part of Great Britain, I don't know), but halfway through the movie I started to get a new perspective about it. The backgrounds all have a very saturated tones that gives off a depressing vibe, which is exactly how the artists want you to feel while watching it. This isn't a happy Disney princess movie, its Plague Dogs! You wouldn't be as investing in the character's hunger and desperation if the ground was all green and sunny. One thing that did stand out drastically about the backgrounds is the use of camera movements through them. The biggest one is when Rowf is howling at the moon for Snitter as the camera rotates around him. There is also another scene where Snitter is explaining where he went and the camera bounces around the ruined shack, popping into each window and opening to show the two of them talking. It must have been very hard to set up with each rotating and twisting background matching the cells of animation.
The characters were defined very clearly. By that I mean you could pick up what their character traits were very fast. Rowf, the big lab, was tested for his stamina so he is naturally strong. His thought pattern is mainly bent on killing anyone who messes with them. He wants to die fighting. Like all tough characters, Rowf is also very stubborn and a bit dim. He also thinks with the glass half empty. Snitter is the opposite, he is small, weak, and a positive thinker. While Snitter is dependent on Rowf's strength, Rowf is dependent on Snitter's motivation. Despite how positive he is, Snitter isn't a realist. His head is in the clouds about finding a master like his former one. That, and the fact that his brain was tampered with at the research facility. Snitter suffers from "flies in his head" and he constantly gets confused. At one point it gets so bad that he invents a better life in his head that he can see from time to time. Later on the two dogs meet up with a fox named "the tod". Tod, or the tod, is right away deemed a trickster (like all fox characters). The only reason the dogs team up with him is that he has real world experience in hunting and escaping humans. Throughout the movie they fight with him (well mostly Rowf does) because he is always swindling them in some way. The final character(s) is the narrators. Its kind of hard to understand if they are the dogs voices sometimes, but they are a interesting addition to the movie. What they do is explain the larger picture of what the dogs are up to, usually while we watch footage of the dogs running around. Each narrator is different, so some times it is a news reporter talking about sheep being killed by dogs, or a scientist from the lab telling someone to keep quiet about their escape. This is a unique use of narration that I have only seen used in small parts such as a letter being read or a phone call, not something that is used throughout the film. I love it. It reminds me of the new trend in current games where you will pick up an audio recording of serious event that plays as you continue to play the game. Also, there a lot of famous people who give their voices to the characters including John Hurt (Snitter) and Patrick Stewart (Narrator, Military Major).
Some interesting facts: There are two run times for Plague Dogs, one 86 minutes and one 103 minutes. The full version only played in Australia, which if you know Australia now that seems like a myth. Recently it was collected again for a DVD release that contains the missing bits. Most cuts parts were pointless, but once full scene was cut. In it a helicopter flies over some hills to find a dead body of a man who has been eaten. It was pulled because it was so shocking, but when you watch the film at that point the dogs were really starving so inevitably they would eat a human (I managed to see the scene and it is very powerful in retrospect of the whole movie. Like a final act of defiance against humans even though they really just wanted something to eat). The ending is like the book however in later editions of the novel (highlight to show spoiler - warning - does reveal ending of the movie) Richard Adams changed the ending so that the two dogs did survive and were rescued by Snitter's former master (who conveniently didn't die like he thought he had....so why was he sent to the laboratory?). They then lived with him happily ever after, the end. (End spoiler)
Final Verdict: While it may be violent filled with a lot of death, Plague Dogs is more about the depressing struggle of two dogs trying to find a better life. There is no swearing (maybe an arse or two I guess), and the violence isn't too life threatening, but I still think a child won't understand the serious plot. A great movie to watch (if you are okay with a constant feeling of dread), but I would suggest sandwiching this movie with something more lighthearted and comedic to bring your mood back on to a level playing ground.
Also, WARNING, THIS MOVIE IS NOT FOR CHILDREN OR ANYONE WHO IS TAKING ANTI-DEPRESSANTS.
Next time: Another 1982 animated film, Les Maitres du Temps.
No comments:
Post a Comment