Dog's charm dazzles on celluloid

The browsers ecstasy

Some three years ago, I would notice the odd book that told a story about an especially loving and/or out of control dog (like Marley) with a cute dog-photo on the cover. These days the bookshelves in bookstores are lined up with books about dog-relationships, fiction and non-fiction. It’s a nice little genre in itself now. As a dog lover, I can’t keep up with them anymore, as much as I would like to. They all seem so endearingly readable. Instead, I’m watching dog movies. They aren’t always as good as the books they are based on, but there are enough dog-moments in them to keep you happy.

However, I have to confess that I’m beginning to feel a little uncomfortable with movies about real dogs featuring real dogs. While I am completely for all kinds of books about dogs, I squirm a bit at dog-movies because however endearing they are, filled with all kinds of fetching dog-moments, the dogs don’t know they are in a movie, do they? They don’t know what the hell they are doing, but are cajoled and trained into doing it. We applaud. And they deserve all the high-praise, but I’m not sure they know they are stars or read reviews. For this reason, though I like seeing real dogs in movies, I prefer the anime dog movie like The Triplets of Bellville and My Dog Tulip to Marley and Me and Hotel for Dogs.

 In the really best animated films, dogs — indeed all animals and birds — are ironically genuine, flesh and blood characters living an actual life through the film, rather than trained motions.  

Still, there is one dog movie I want to make an exception for, just so his remarkable story is widely known and told. Hachi: A Dog’s Tale is a wonderful true story about a truly amazing dog. This is a Hollywood remake of an older Japanese film which itself was based on a book. Hachiko stars Richard Gere as a professor who finds an abandoned Akita pup in the suburban commuter train station he uses every day. Of all the commuters on the platform, the pup seems to have picked Gere — or so it feels to us and Gere — who can’t resist taking the pup home with him. His wife (Joan Allen) objects at first, but is soon won over. They name him Hachiko or Hachi, which is the name for the Japanese good luck symbol hanging around the pup’s neck. Gere’s Japanese colleague at the college tells him Akitas are known for their devotion.   

The professor Richard Gere plays lives in the suburbs and commutes to the city every morning by train. When classes are over, he catches a train back in the evening. Hachi and Richard form a daily ritual: the dog walks with him to the train station each morning, and leaves once the train departs. Hachi returns every evening to wait for Richard outside the train station at exactly the hour his train pulls in. No one could figure out how Hachi knew to turn up for the same train each day. For the people at the station, especially the South Asian hotdog and coffee vendor and the station master (played by Jason Alexander), this became a daily spectacle. They even began to spend a little time with Hachi when he would arrive a little early to wait for the train in the evenings. One day, during class, Richard Gere has a heart attack and dies.

And for nine years after that, Hachi unfailingly waited for the evening train outside the train station, through rain and snow. Eventually, word got around of Hachi’s faithfulness and love, and a local reporter told the story. The story grew and became a book, and then a movie. Now there’s a statue of Hachi at the Japanese station it happened. The movie, directed by Lasse Hallstrom, somehow manages to give you plenty of charming and winsome dog moments without turning cute or sentimental. Hachi’s profound loyalty simply rises above any trivial emotions. All the different dogs that play Hachi, from pup to adult, are absolutely delightful to look and marvel at.

My Dog Year, a more realistic dog movie, is even less heard of and seen than Hachi, and perhaps it should stay that way. This HBO movie starring Jeff Bridges is based on a book by Jon Katz. Katz is a very strange dog owner, and his books seem to have disturbed many dog lovers. This is another ‘true story’ about a burned out writer and how a rowdy, abused border collie he adopts from a shelter, unblocks his writer’s block and gives him a subject to write on. There are really no fetching dog moments in this movie. This is really the dog from hell, not Marley. There is no doubt something wild and dark and mysterious about this border collie called Devon.

Jeff Bridges plays the part nicely, in his cool fashion, occasionally breaking into rage and exasperation over the collie’s indiscipline, but also marvelling at the dog’s deep curiosity and intelligence. Once again, it’s the many dogs that play the border collie over the years that win you over. The author, Jon Katz, has owned a number of dogs over the years and has written many books on his life with them. I haven’t read the books myself, but I hear from many readers that there is much that is puzzling about how these stories end — usually with the author euthanising his pets when they fall ill. Devon, the border collie this movie is about, is also euthanised. The movie doesn’t show or tell you this.

This aspect of Katz has baffled people, more so when he notes, “Once in a great while the right person is fortunate enough to get the right dog, to have time to take care of it, to connect with it in a profound way.” So there you have it: one marvelous dog movie and one uninspiring dog movie. But, I urge you to see Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. I found this film more satisfying than most movies about humans I saw all year.