Movie Start & Trailer: Underdog – Europe comes to the dogs – THE WORLD

Actually, “Underdog” is a simple story. A 13-year-old whose parents are divorced, moves during an absence of the mother and father to bring their dog with. The father does not like dogs and exposes the hybrid, which is brought by scavengers in a shelter. Meanwhile Lili looking everywhere Hagen. Yes, Hagen. . As in von Tronje

It would be a simple story, director Kornél Mundruczó not the first picture would give us – say – with a flash-forward to the end it is quite another. We see the bridges, the roads, the urban canyons of Budapest, it’s broad daylight and no creature shows up. Then: a girl on a bicycle, and then: dogs, hundreds of dogs behind her. One does not know whether they hunt or whether to follow her, but in any case is at this location civilization falling apart.

“Underdog “is one of the most amazing films of recent years, a hybrid of puberty and fairy tales and horror film and society parabola. Originally wanted Mundruczó him prefixing the text of a draft law of the far-right Jobbik party, which demanded a special tax for non-purebred dogs. But that would have narrowed it to Hungary and the problem of racism in this country. In reality, “Underdog” highly internationally.

The man in this film radiate a latent aggression, tortures but feel their system they qualify reduced ; Lili’s father-scientist examined meat at the slaughterhouse, their music teacher once conducted major orchestras. It’s about poverty, about existential angst. And what little remains is, allegedly threatened by potential enemies: from banks and multinationals and Islamists and refugees, the underdogs from Africa. Or the own neighbors.

This company description that makes Mundruczó Hungary, can be transferred to the entire West, the better, the less ancient of the prosperity remains. Hungary is the essence of our European problems. The melancholy that timelessness that Gulaschwurstelei, they have given way to a permanent aggression. A dog that has no owner found after two weeks at the shelter can be killed. It’s the law in Hungary. Man is the unproductive Wolf.

Hagen could, say, still lucky. He is taken out of the kennel and sprayed the dog fight. Yes, the analogy to millions to swallow the stimulant in order to survive the daily struggle in the job can, Mundruczó draws abundantly clear, but that does not mean that they would be wrong.

Photo: Delphi Filmverleih In” Underdog “comes Budapest definitively to the dogs

“underdog” can be animal not become a brave savior of the people, but to moral heroes; so far has probably never been a film gone. As Hagen has bitten the first fellow sufferers in the ring, he bows his head in shame; if people do not know any more shame, says the movie, just need to take the animals in their place. Mundruczó has much read JM Coetzee and staged the “shame” of the Vienna Festival, and the fact it is about the rediscovery of compassion, and even there are dogs of the catalyst. Hagen looks at this moment like an old Hollywood hero who has done the dirty job again, but now draws a line. A Canis Bogartiensis, who follows a moral way, against all odds, to prevail.

dogs, they say, remember earlier than people, if something is wrong , This is true not only of compassion, but also for justice. Where people have lost the drive to revolt, says the film remain only the animals. The scene in which the swarming pack of dogs, acts like the scenes with birds or piranhas or wolves that come in horror films in the habitat of man. But it also reminds us of Soviet revolutionary films in which the working masses to pour out of the factory in the city to spread the rebellion. You feel more hope than horror.

Kornél Mundruczó is one of these dogs, it is his anger over this society, and with this film he bites back. His “Underdog” also is a small miracle of working with animals (the word dressage avoid); 40 of the 55 days of shooting, Mundruczó told, had been used for the dog scenes, only 15 for the men. The trainer was called Teresa Ann Miller, and – here is the film historical chance intervenes heavily – she is the daughter of legendary dog ​​trainer Karl Lewis Miller, who trained the German Shepherd for “White Beast” many years ago, Sam Fuller’s legendary film about a by racists to kill blacks trained dog. Better way to “Underdog” hardly comment.