Black Dog is ‘Sixth Generation’ director Hu Guan’s hit film, a huge allegory about rapid change in modern China.
Running Dogs
by Alexa DalbyBlack Dog
CAUTION: Here be spoilers
Set in a small town in remote northwest China next to the bleak Gobi Desert, Black Dog seems surreal at times – at others hyper-realistic in its portrayal of dilapidated small-town China, with a tattered poster for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
A pack of wild dogs and a sandstorm overturn a bus on a lonely road through the sparse scrub. Ex-rock-star Lang (Eddie Peng) is one of the displaced passengers: he is a prisoner released on parole – we discover why later. He does not speak in the film, perhaps indicating his refusal of everything he sees.
As part of China’s (too?) rapid modernisation, the old buildings and neighbourhoods in the town are being torn down and long-time residents compulsorily relocated. They resignedly accept this. So that new building work can go ahead, all the (many) dogs in the town must be caught and removed, is the official decree, similar to the cull in Istanbul. But in China this includes pets as well as street dogs.
Butcher Hu plays a part in the story, revealed later. Welcomed on his return by a café owner and still recognised, Lang gets a job catching the rampant dogs, but two scenes show he is too soft-hearted to obey the ‘rules’ as his compliant and terrified co-workers do. He visits his father, now dying in hospital: he had taken up residence at the zoo when he lost his home due to relocation, where a caged tiger is short of meat.
He is adopted by/adopts a skinny black dog, seen by the authorities as the worst offender. The two outcasts and rebels bond and live together, in real life as well as the film. Lang takes him everywhere in the sidecar to his motorbike.
At the same time, a circus comes to town, and Lang and a performer Grape or Raisin (Tong Liya) temporarily connect.
Director Hu Guan’s – beautiful to look at but rather disjointed – film gives small optimistic indications that the spirit of independence and rebellion continues into the next generation and there are signs, like opening the tiger’s cage door, of hope. It’s full of little things that are realistic on their own, but quite meaningful in a subtle way.
Black Dog is the first Chinese-language film to win an award in the Un Certain Regard strand in 18 years since Luxury Car (2006), and the only Chinese-language film to win an award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It is released on 30 August 2024 in the UK.
The lead canine, Xiao Xin, a Jack Russell-Greyhound cross, received the Grand Jury Prize at the Palm Dog Award.
