When my cinephile friend Akhilesh Sreedharan (from my JNU days), recently suggested the film White God on Mubi, I was immediately curious.
I have never seen an art house film like White God, that has moved me so much. I was literally in tears, by the end of the film. The feeling was similar to that of the emotionally moving scenes of an entertainer film. I don’t know if the distinction of an arthouse film and an entertainment film is even applicable, while talking about the experience such as wathcing this Hungarian film. This creative act by the director Kornél Mundruczó opens up a series of questions about the human-animal love-hate relationships. There are moments, that the dog protagonist is manifested like an action hero. What I loved most about this 2014 film is that the viewer is compelled to identify with the animal as the central character, equally important as the teenage girl in the drama.
At one point, one startes to wonder, who is the White God. Is it the teenage girl? The inter-species dimension of the film, inevitably, made me think of the philosophy of Donna Haraway, and the final scene of the dog army surrendering to the melodious trumpet rendition by the teenage girl, and the teenage girl also lying down on the floor, eye-line matching with the dog army, and the reformed dog-hater father-professor also surrendering in front of the benign nature of canine love, is extremely Harawayesque in significance. But then, this reversal of the pied-pier moment, looked like the reassertion of human superiority, or anthropocentrism at large.
Anyway, without much theorization, I should just admit that, I thouroughly enjoyed the film, and that is more important. Moving and thought-provoking. Whether it aligns with the philosophy of Donna Haraway or not, is only secondary.