How
do you keep 550 hectacres of strategically located land undeveloped for years,
even during Romania’s Communist era? You have to be one bad cat, like Roman’s
late grandfather, whom he hardly knew. Perhaps not surprisingly, the town’s
terminally ill police chief and various low life thugs are less than welcoming
when Roman takes possession of his property (with the intent to sell) in Bogdan
Mirică’s Dogs (trailer here), which
screens as part of this year’s Film Comment Selects.
“Uncle
Alecu’s” property comes with a cranky caretaker, a snarling guard dog
ironically named “Police” and a drafty old farmhouse with a shotgun prominently
displayed. Soon after his arrival Police the dog alerts him to two strange cars
secretly meeting in the middle of Old Alecu’s barren scrub grass. A few days
later, Roman and his sales agent Sebi Voicu interrupt another such nocturnal
rendezvous. Rather ominously, Voicu’s car was discovered abandoned shortly
thereafter.
Voicu’s
disappearance is one of two cases Chief Hogas is trying to clear. The other
involves a severed foot discovered floating in a nearby pond. Unfortunately,
two serious complications have imposed artificial time constraints on Hogas.
His precinct is imminently due to be replaced by a roving mobile unit and his
body is fatally riddled with cancer. Before he goes, Hogas desperately hopes to
take down his nemesis, Samir, the local drug trafficking kingpin.
Dogs could indeed be considered
the Romanian No Country for Old Men or
Hell or High Water. It definitely has
a contemporary western vibe, but it is still a Romanian film, so it should come
as no surprise Dogs is a bit of a
slow-starting slow-builder. Yet, Mirică organically develops the tension out of
the moody, frontier-like setting. While the title is somewhat metaphorical,
Police the junkyard dog still gets plenty of screen time. If you liked A Dog’s Purpose, you would probably be utterly
horrified by Mirică’s Dogs, but it is
still features some impressive canine screen work.
Dragos
Bucur is actually a rather big fellow, but he manages to make Roman
convincingly gawky and passive. Gheorghe Visu is quite salty and wry, playing
Hogas much like a Romanian Jeff Bridges, except more emaciated. Constantin
Cojocaru adds plenty of sinister local color as the caretaker, Epure, but
Police’s constantly barking presence really makes the film.
