My life as a dog

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Movie
German title My life as a dog
Original title Mitt liv som dog
Country of production Sweden
original language Swedish
Publishing year 1985
length 101 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Let Hallström
script Lasse Hallström
Reidar Jönsson
Brasse Brännström
Per Berglund
production Waldemar Bergendahl
music Björn Isfalt
camera Jörgen Persson
cut Christer Furubrand
Susanne Linnman
occupation

My Life as a Dog is an award-winning Swedish film directed by Lasse Hallström from 1985. It is based on a novel by Reidar Jönsson .

content

In a small town in southern Sweden in the late 1950s, 12-year-old Ingemar and his older brother Erik grow up with their single mother. The father has been abroad for an indefinite period of time; the mother, who used to be a photographer, suffers from a progressive disease, apparently tuberculosis . Her strength is dwindling, her nerves are badly damaged. She reacts increasingly hysterically to the daily annoyances that pubescent boys cause her - often unintentionally - which in turn takes the sensitive Ingemar, who is closely connected to her, with him and has already led to the first signs of a neurological disease himself. The relatives intervene and give the mother a break for the duration of the summer vacation; Erik is housed with his grandmother, Ingemar with Uncle Gunnar and his wife in a village in Småland .

Ingemar misses his beloved dog Sickan most painfully there, who was put into a dog boarding school. The position of his best friend, on the other hand, is quickly filled: Saga, a boyish girl who boxers and plays soccer, likes him right away, challenges him and makes him more defensive and combative. Uncle Gunnar, soccer goalkeeper and coach of the children's team, is in the mood for jokes and is more of a friend than a surrogate father. During the day Ingemar, like a few other children, is allowed to go to the glassblower's hut, the main employer in the area, where he helps out a little and, with boyish charm, "conquers" the luscious blonde Berit. When the village artist invites her to pose for him as a model, Ingemar takes her with him as a "chaperon".

The return to the mother failed. If her illness got worse, she had to be hospitalized. The boys come to live with their second uncle in town, but his wife does n't understand Ingemar's occasional tics . After the mother dies, Ingemar ends up back in the now wintry Småland. Gunnar and his wife are still cordial to him, but since a large Greek family has been quartered in their house, they have to put him somewhere else at least at night. Saga is most excited about Ingemar's return; they are also in the same class now. After an argument, however, he stirs up their jealousy and lets a classmate invite him to a party, where both girls attack each other and Ingemar intervenes by barking and clinging to Saga's leg. But it is Saga's claim (which turns out to be true) that his dog is long dead. He locks himself in Gunnar's garden shed and continues to react to Gunnar's approach like a dog barking to defend his territory. Wrapped in blankets, he spends the night crying, but is comforted by Gunnar in the morning.

The final culminates in a real historical event, the world championship fight in heavyweight boxing between Ingemar Johansson and Floyd Patterson on June 26, 1959, which is watched spellbound on the radio and enthusiastically celebrated after the Swede's knockout victory. The only ones in town who apparently did not notice any of this are of all people who had previously faced themselves in the ring, adorned with the names of these idols: Ingemar and Saga; apparently busy with her reconciliation, the final picture shows her slumbering peacefully on a couch.

shape

Numerous smaller episodes are told that follow the chronology of a year (summer 1958 to summer 1959) - with the exception of one scene that moves to the beginning in order to create tension and a reference to the title: It shows Ingemar on the night he was slips into the role of a dog. Occasionally the film plot is interrupted by sprinkles from the protagonist's world of thought : on the one hand memories in which his mother appears when she was not or less sick, on the other hand news of accidents from all over the world that have impressed on him. There are meaningful repetitions in both areas. When it comes to memories, it is the scene with which the film begins , even before the opening credits : Ingemar is on the beach with his mother, and with a little madness he manages to make her laugh - a laugh that shows that Susceptibility to humor was a natural part of her. Ingemar also has this dowry, as does Gunnar, and you can see that he is able to counter Ingemar's most distinctive tic (his muscle tension when he starts drinking under stress) in this way - humor as therapy . Ingemar accepts it gratefully, but unfortunately blames himself for the fact that his humor therapy with his mother no longer works; Of course, he cannot yet grasp the scope and symptoms of her illness.

Ingemars self-therapy consists in distancing comparison. To this end, he uses the accidents that one could perhaps read in a newspaper under the heading “From all over the world”, for example that of a moviegoer who imitates Tarzan at home by taking a power line in the absence of a vine , or that of a stuntman who wants to jump over 31 cars with his motorcycle, exactly one too many ... One does not get the impression that Ingemar is feasting on the misfortunes of others; rather, it seems that this diminishes his own for him. He usually also prefers these messages with the introductory phrase: “You have to compare ...” Or also: “It is important to create distance ...” The message that Ingemar responds to several times is most closely linked to the latter does not seem to fit completely under the heading of "accidents" because the common view classifies it under "successes of mankind": the bitch Laika as the first earthly living being in space.

Subject

Ingemar perceives what the anthropocentric view does not want to see: that Laika, unlike the first people soon after, did not do it voluntarily, that a return was not planned for her from the start, that she starved to death in her capsule ... To have uncovered the downside of the alleged success story is thanks to Ingemars empathy . In addition to the painful effect, this also has a liberating effect for him, because empathy with Laika's fate helps him at least to relativize the death of his own dog Sickan. Last but not least, the reference to Laika also gives the title a meaning. Sometimes Ingemar seems to look at the world with Laika's eyes, as the viewer always looks at the same motionless image at the moments when he talks about those accidents: a starry night sky.

The fact that the film is a plea for recognizing every life in its own way and allowing it to apply is shown in an even more complex manner in other respects. Namely, how Hallström depicts life in that village in Småland . Just how he populates it! Every second seems to be an "original" here. Some appear in a typified manner, such as the village beauty with the stature of Anita Ekberg , which all men desire, the artist, whose genius is probably not that far off, or the lustful old man who is still on the deathbed of Ingemar's frivolous texts lets read out. The two weirdest eccentrics are certainly the trapeze artist Karl-Evert, who from time to time presents his arts and can reel down all sorts of useless knowledge on request, as well as "Fransson on the roof", who pounds on his house roof in summer and winter and apparently only hammers Goes down once a year to take an ice bath, which, if noticed, turns into a little folk festival. Not to be forgotten, Uncle Gunnar, who, although still young, struggles to be an owl, just because of his whimsy to always hear the same song ("Far, jag kan inte få upp min kokosnöt" by Povel Ramel ) .

The village is by no means a place of innocence and harmony. There is certainly anger and quarrel, resentment and ridicule. But everything that harbors potential for conflict is ultimately turned for the better. This is also the point most likely to be criticized, especially by US reviewers. On the other hand, my life as a dog was able to win the favor of jurors of important film prizes - including the Golden Globe and Oscar - in this country.

Reviews

"A sensitive, multi-faceted film about the despair and confusion of a boy who makes an impressive plea for taking children and their joys and sorrows seriously."

“Anton Glanzelius, the star of Lasse Hallström's new film,“ My Life as a Dog ”, appears like a miniature Jack Nicholson . He looks like one of those dimpled angels floating around Fragonard's , but he has devilish eyebrows and, even if he's only 11, knows how to use them. "

“Sometimes (especially in its funnier moments) the film achieves the pull that Francois Truffaut used to recall childhood. But sometimes it also seems like a 1980s version of the embellished, idealized, sentimental view of children that Hollywood producers liked to take who made fortunes with Jackie Coogan , Jackie Cooper , Shirley Temple , Margaret O'Brien and their less important imitators. "

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Release certificate (PDF; 34 kB) of the FSK, accessed on January 23, 2015.
  2. a b Hal Hinson : 'My life as a dog' . In: Washington Post , May 11, 1987, (English; own translation), accessed June 6, 2019.
  3. ^ A b Vincent Canby : A boy's year . In: New York Times , March 24, 1987, (English; own translation), accessed June 6, 2019.
  4. My life as a dog. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used