Los Reyes

Chasing after tennis balls can be exhausting.

(2018) Documentary (Self-Released) Football, Chola, Sebastián “Negro Seba” Añiguel, Paulina “Pauly” Herrera, Sebastián “Chico” Alcalde, Tomás “Wence” Alul, Victor “Lulo” Bañados, Ignacio “Nachito” Bañados, Charlye Joses Rey Zapata, Elizabeth “Eli” Cabeza. Directed by Iván Osnovikoff and Bettina Perut

Santiago (the capital of Chile) like most other urban metropolises is both busy and often chaotic, sometimes leaving residents with heads spinning and hearts pounding. Lives move at hyper-speeds through the busy streets that are choked with automobiles and foot traffic. Towering office buildings, towering apartment complexes and bright neon shopping districts jostle one another for the attention of the eye.

Parque de los Reyes is an oasis in the urban ballet. Located on the Mapocho River, it contains within its green borders Santiago’s oldest skatepark. At any given time, the skatepark has its share of skaters, mostly adolescent males. Their conversation is pretty typical for skaters; issues with parents, getting stoned, wondering why expectations are set for them when all they want to do is skate and of course, girls. Their same conversations could be overheard at any skatepark in the world.

However, the uncrowned kings of Los Reyes are Football and Chola, a pair of stray dogs who live in the park. With often disinterested eyes they observe the goings-on, sometimes sleeping and sometimes sunning themselves. Rarely do they interact with the skaters although the skaters will from time to time throw a ball around, a game the dogs thoroughly enjoy – just like dogs everywhere.

In many ways the two dogs are like the skaters themselves, living a life of simplicity, interested mainly in food, drink, sex (when they can get it) and taking it easy. Football and Chola don’t need a lot to survive and the city has thoughtfully provided them with dog houses to offer shelter during the rainstorms that are a regular occurrence during the winter months.

We almost never see human faces in the film other than as reflections in water or shadowed inside hoodies, although we hear the skaters chatting in the background. While we hear the skaters talking about the things important to them, we are almost looking at the dogs, concentrating on their indolence, enjoying the insect and bird life that also lives in the park. This is as close to being a dog as you are likely to ever get.

It’s hard not to be enchanted by these two dogs, even if you aren’t particularly a dog lover. The bond between them is absolutely genuine and they each have definite personalities; Chola is an extrovert whose favorite game is to take a tennis ball (or other ball) and coax it to the lip of a one of the skating areas, and then gradually nose it down the ramp whereupon she chases after it. Football loves to bark, so much so that he gets hoarse by the end of the movie. He has a bit of an oral fixation; he’s always got something in his mouth from a plastic beverage bottle to a tennis ball to a rock. Both of them are as sweet as pie.

I did have a bone to pick though; near the end of the film one of the dogs (neither of whom are named until the end credits) shows signs of being terribly sick. We get close-ups of insects infesting the dog’s ears, larvae emerging from the skin – it’s not a pretty picture. Dog lovers – including this one – are going to be wondering if the camera crew took the dog to the vet or gave it any sort of comfort beyond filming the misery of its final days. It is a difficult sequence to watch, made even more poignant by the plaintive howl that the surviving dog makes after their buddy is gone.

The relationship between the dogs isn’t a made-up one nor are the canines anthropomorphized at all. We see them being dogs, doing what dogs do. This isn’t a DisneyNature documentary meant to dumb things down for audiences of kids. The life of these dogs isn’t always pretty but all in all it isn’t a bad life either. For a dog nut like myself, this is absolute candy.

REASONS TO SEE: This is about as close as you’re ever going to come to seeing life through a dog’s point of view. The interplay between the dogs is poignant.
REASONS TO AVOID: Dog lovers may find the last third troubling.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity and some drug use.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The documentary was originally intended to focus on three of the skateboarders but the filmmakers found the dogs to be a much more fascinating subject.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/19/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 100% positive reviews: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Kedi
FINAL RATING: 8/10
NEXT: Birds of Passage

Greenberg

Greta Gerwig is surprised that Ben Stiller knows his way to the kitchen.

(2010) Dramedy (Focus) Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Chris Messina, Brie Larson, Susan Traylor, Merritt Wever, Blair Tefkin, Mina Badie, Mark Duplass, Juno Temple, Dave Franco, Max Hoffman. Directed by Noah Baumbach

There are those among us who are just harder to get along with than others. They, for whatever reason, seem bound and determined to alienate everyone around them, pushing them away with the firm hand of someone who has no intention of letting anyone near, but terrified that they will spend their lives alone.

Roger Greenberg (Stiller) is like that. After a stint in a mental hospital, he has returned to his old L.A. stomping grounds (he used to be in a band) to housesit for his successful older brother (Messina) who is opening a new hotel in Vietnam.

His job is to care for the dog and the home while the family is gone. His brother’s assistant Florence (Gerwig) is left to hold the bag and inevitably become Greenberg’s assistant, not by choice but by necessity. Greenberg is prickly and socially awkward. He lashes out the people around him, writing letters to express his deep disappointment to various institutions and corporations. He holds people to standards he himself refuses to meet.

He hooks up with old friend Ivan (Ifans), a former member of his band and has trouble understanding why Ivan and the other bandmates were hurt by his actions, abandoning them just as it seemed they were about to achieve success, moving to New York City to become a carpenter. In the meantime, he is building a doghouse for his brother and entering a tentative, somewhat strange relationship with Florence. It is borderline abusive – Greenberg is often cruel in his remarks, sometimes purposefully so. He does things often without thinking. In short, he’s not a very nice guy. He himself doesn’t realize it – in many ways, he is the least self-aware character you will find in the movies.

Baumbach is one of the most interesting indie directors out there, with such movies as The Squid and the Whale in his credits. He has a flair for taking an unlikable character, as Greenberg is, and making them front and center and without resorting to cutesy Hollywood clichés gives the audience a way to if not relate to them at least understand them somewhat.

Stiller does perhaps the best work of his career as Roger Greenberg. Stiller’s work in comedies often puts him in the persona of a poor man’s Seinfeld – handsome, charming and quirky – but here he really comes into his own. A role like this is a bit of a chance – stars often feel the need to protect their persona as zealously as they trademark their images – but this certainly is a far cry from Stiller’s usual roles.

Gerwig has gotten a lot of positive reviews for her performance and that’s no accident; she has a very different role to tread, portraying a vulnerable and sweet girl without getting too cloying. Florence is one of those kinds of girls who you run into in bookstores from time to time, who flash that sweet but self-conscious smile for a millisecond that lights up an entire room like a flashbulb, then reverts to that mysterious half-smile that girls seem to learn from birth to bewitch guys. Her character has a shy, un-self-confident air about her and its rather sweet, but again, not cloyingly so.

Ifans is also charming, playing a bit of a sad sack, long-suffering friend who puts up with the slings and arrows Greenberg sends his way until he finally can take no more. He has a scene near the end where he has it out with Greenberg that is one of the movie’s highlights. It’s a tribute to him as an actor that you rarely notice how good he is in his role, until you think about it afterwards and realize that he was as good if not better than anyone else in it.

This is the kind of movie that defies conventions and typical Hollywood stereotypes. It’s not an easy move to watch at times – Greenberg can be an absolute rotten bastard. However, it is rewarding in that you find perhaps parts of yourself that up to now have not held up to self-examination. There’s a little bit of Greenberg in all of us; just hopefully, not a lot of him.

WHY RENT THIS: Exceedingly well-acted character study that is as fascinating as it is at times repellent.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Roger Greenberg isn’t the most likable protagonist ever; you may find yourself rooting for him to get his just deserts.

FAMILY VALUES: There’s quite a bit of sexuality as well as some drug use and a fair amount of bad language.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The soundtrack was composed and arranged by James Murphy of the electronic band LCD Soundsystem.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $6.2M on an unreported production budget; the movie probably lost money.

FINAL RATING: 6.5/10

TOMORROW: The Last King of Scotland