Stray (2020)

Some dogs have the unique ability to look sad and smug at the same time.

(2020) Documentary (Magnolia) Zeytin, Nazar, Kartal, Jamil, Ali, Hajil, Little Ali, Baran, Hakim, Kenan.  Directed by Elizabeth Lo

 

We humans treat our dogs with attitudes that can only be called schizophrenic. On the one hand, we are nuts about our pups; we buy them sweaters to wear in the winter (despite the fact they come factory-equipped with a fur coat), and write endless reams of praise for their loyalty, their friendship, their love. We also use their name as an insult; you’re a “dirty dog” or “treat someone like a dog.” But mostly, we regard the creature as man’s best friend.

Istanbul has a vast number of stray dogs running about. That’s mainly because a fair number of those following the Islamic faith believe that dogs are ritually unpure; certain writings forbid the practice of keeping a dog in the house; some believe that the mere site of a dog during prayer can negate the supplications of the person doing the praying. The Quran also instructs, on the other hand, that all creatures be respected and be treated with dignity – including dogs.

Hong Kong-born filmmaker Elizabeth Lo spent two years in Istanbul following around a trio of strays, with Zeytin – the first one we meet – the one she spent the most time with. Zeytin is a beautiful animal with one of the most expressive canine faces you’re ever likely to see. She has a playful disposition and although she does get in a kerfuffle with another stray during the course of the film, mostly she seems to want to play with other dogs and the humans she meets on the streets of Istanbul.

There are also two other dogs that Lo spends time with; Nazar, the companion of Zeytin, and Kartal, a puppy that joins the group later in the film. That’s because she is dognapped by one of the teen Syrian refugees that Zeytin spends a lot of time hanging out with. Much of the film is spent drawing parallels between the dogs and the refugees who have, ironically, fewer protections under the law than the stray dogs do.

Lo tends to give us a dog’s-eye view of the human culture, setting the camera low at eye level of the various hounds she follows. She also at one point straps a GoPro to Zeytin which proves to be a terrible idea; the loping dog gait bounces and jerks the camera around like there’s an earthquake going on. Even on a laptop the effect is so dizziness-inducing that I had to step away from watching the movie for several minutes while my vertigo subsided and my equilibrium was restored.

There isn’t much dialogue here. We catch snatches of conversations with passersby, as well as from the varied street kids that the dogs are with. There are moments that are moving – the kids receive meals from a state service, feeding the dogs from those meals first. There are also moments that are amusing as the dogs can be plenty playful and as I said, Zeytin has a wonderful range of expressions on her face, from smugness to incredulity to joy to sorrow.

I have to admit that I was terrified watching Zeytin ambling along the streets and highways of the city. Traffic is often whizzing by and I had nightmare visions of the dog dashing into the street and getting pulverized by a truck. Thankfully, nothing like that happens here.

Being something of a dog nut myself, I found spending time with these canines to be most rewarding. Lo obviously has an affinity for dogs; she peppers the film with title cards with quotes regarding the nobility of dogs by ancient philosophers, mostly from Diogenes – the same guy who went looking for an honest man while carrying a lamp, according to legend. Diogenes clearly preferred dogs to humans and I can hardly blame him.

Your attitude towards the film will largely depend on your attitude towards dogs. If you love dogs, you’ll find the film rewarding. If you are ambivalent towards dogs, you likely will find the film more enlightening about the attitudes towards refugees. If you’re not fond of dogs, best you find something else to watch. The movie, though, is entertaining and heartwarming enough that it’s worth seeing by the entire family, although you will rarely find a movie in which dogs take a dump as much as they do in this one.

REASONS TO SEE:  Zeytin has the most amazing expressive face. Makes some fascinating parallels between stray dogs and homeless teens.
REASONS TO AVOID: There’s a nausea-inducing sequence when a GoPro is strapped to Zeytin’s back.
FAMILY VALUES: Suitable for all audiences.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: In 1909 the city of Istanbul made a concerted effort to annihilate the stray dog population, but public outcry forced the government to enact laws preventing the euthanasia or holding of strays.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, DirecTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Redbox, Showcase Now, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/8/21: Rotten Tomatoes: 941% positive reviews. Metacritic: 84/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Los Reyes
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Latin Noir

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Stray (2019)

Empty factories are always creepiest at night.

(2019) Supernatural Crime Thriller (Screen Media) Karen Fukuhara, Christine Woods, Miyavi, Ross Partridge, Takayo Fischer, Saki Miyata, Brandon Brooks, Brian Carroll, Jamiah Brown, Kiran Deol, Eunice Chiweshe Goldstein, Alex Hyner, Nicolas Jung, Fahad Olayan, Geoffrey H. Russell, April Lind, Sonia Jackson, Heather Pache, Cecilia Benevich. Directed by Joe Sill

 

Maybe the most interesting thing about police work is that you never know what you’re going to get when you get on the job. That also may be the most dangerous thing about police work as well.

Detective Murphy (Woods) is getting back to work as a homicide detective after an extended leave of absence. It’s bad enough that her ex-husband Jake (Partridge) is also now her boss but she is immediately called to a grisly murder scene in which a woman has apparently been burned to death, but then the weirdness begins. First of all, the woman isn’t burned – she’s petrified. The body has also been dated as over a thousand years old despite the fact that the victim had been seen just the previous day.

The victim’s daughter, Nori (Fukuhara) is eager to discover what happened to her mother but the victim’s mother (Fischer) is less forthcoming. Murphy’s bad news instincts are on overdrive so she cultivates a relationship with Nori. The two women are linked by tragedies in their immediate past and the two begin to bond. Murphy discovers that Nori has strange psychic powers that manifest when she is emotionally stressed. Not only that but those powers run in the family; her grandmother has them, her mother has them and her estranged brother Jim (Miyavi) has them.

As Murphy chases down the killer it is clear that Nori is the next target and by extension Murphy who has put the girl under her protection much to the dismay of Jake but how does one protect a girl from powers so evil and so strong that they can turn a human being into stone in the blink of an eye?

Sill makes his feature film debut here and it’s really not a bad one. There are elements that really work here and even though this is a low-budget affair, the CGI is actually pretty good. What isn’t as good is the procedural aspects which take a few liberties with logic and common sense.

There are some strong performances here, particularly by Woods who places a deeply wounded and self-medicating burned out cop, a role that normally goes to middle-aged white guys. Adding the feminine factor to the mix (not to mention that Murphy is a total badass) is a welcome deviation from standard crime thriller clichés. The supernatural element isn’t exactly groundbreaking but it does add a nice twist; however, the nature of Nori’s powers are not really clear for the most part and that can be frustrating.

This isn’t a bad film at all and there are some really good moments. Cinematographer Greg Cotton makes excellent use of shadows and darkness and a color palate that goes well with both. While the movie won’t exactly rock your world, it won’t bore you either. Sill definitely someone to keep an eye on and those who like their movies on the eerie side might actually find it a worthwhile pick.

REASONS TO SEE: There is a unique lyricism present here.
REASONS TO AVOID: The police procedural aspect is a little dicey.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some profanity as well as some disturbing images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Fukuhara is best-known in the States for her portrayal of Katana in Suicide Squad.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, Fandango Now, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 3/2/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 60% positive reviews. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Deliver Us From Evil
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Pahokee

Stray

Running with scissors? How about showering with scissors?

(2015) Psychological Thriller (East Meade Street Gang) Gabrielle Stone, Andrew Sensenig, Sean Patrick Foster, Dan McGlaughlin, Alexandra Landau, Samantha Fairfield Walsh, Arita Trahan, Ben Lyle Lotka, Paul McNair, Scarlett Robison, Ana-Maria Arkan, Joe Koch. Directed by Nena Eskridge

 

It is said that no matter how far or how fast we run, the past always catches up with us. I think that’s pretty much true; after all, who can run from what we carry with us everywhere we go?

Jennifer (Stone) arrives in the idyllic small town of Chestnut Hill as a stranger, but she quickly finds a job at a local bar and a house thanks to the trust of lonely Marvin (Sensenig). When Jennifer announces that she’s pregnant, she wastes no time pointing the finger of fatherhood at bar owner Greg (McGlaughlin). As you can imagine, Greg’s fiancée Sarah (Walsh) doesn’t take this news all that well.

As it turns out, Jennifer has something of a checkered past and it’s about to roar into quiet Chestnut Hill like a tornado, with Jennifer at the center. Jennifer’s actions are violent and vicious but she’s had to be that way given what she’s been through. Can she leave that past behind or will she finally be able to create the family she’s yearned for all her life?

This is a micro-budgeted indie (i.e. under $100K budget) and the feature debut of Eskridge, who is an industry veteran in the Northeast. She’s very quick to point out that this isn’t a horror film although there are some horrific elements here so those who are sensitive to such things should be aware of it. No, it’s not a gorefest by any stretch of the imagination; she calls it a psycho-drama and that’s a fairly apt description, but we do have to look in some pretty dark places before the film is over.

With films of this nature, there is a need to keep in mind the circumstances behind it; you can’t hold it to the same criteria that, say, a Martin Scorsese film would be held to. There is a learning curve to filmmaking and it is rare that a first feature microbudget thriller is going to be mistake-free and this one isn’t but all the same this is a very good looking film. Kudos have to go to cinematographer David Landau who puts in some impressive images, using light and shadow effectively. His montage of pastoral scenes at the beginning of the film that is broken up by a scene of sudden violence is masterfully edited.

The film falls down a bit more in the more human elements. The writing is spotty; some of the dialogue doesn’t sound like things that people actually say to each other, and the plot is reasonably predictable and upon occasion, contrived. I don’t mind the occasional contrivance but the filmmaker shouldn’t make a habit of it. I felt that some of the plot points didn’t feel organic.

I don’t like to bash actors and this might well be Eskridge’s inexperience showing through but the acting is stiff. There are scenes when couples are supposed to display affection for one another or when characters are supposed to show attraction to another character, but the body language doesn’t convey it. One can forgive that in a high school drama production but it’s hard to ignore when you can see the stiffness in the way actors hold each other or cuddle. It takes you right out of the film as you realize that these are actors acting, rather than characters being captured on film. The difference is important.

One point is that Jennifer’s violent tendencies are given away too early in the film. I think it would have added to the suspense of the movie had her violent streak been revealed half way through and THEN the back story start to come into play. In a thriller, or psychodrama if you will, it is more effective to keep audiences off-balance when it comes to the lead character’s motivations.

That isn’t to say this is a horrible film; it isn’t. It’s certainly flawed but there are some moments where things click and you can see that Eskridge has some talent and some of the actors do as well, particularly Stone. It also should be said that it does improve as it goes on and the ending is pretty nifty. As I said, there is a bit of a learning curve and this is more of a film at the beginning end of it. The good news that this might be a movie you go back to watching after some of the cast and crew have gone on to bigger and better things and take a gander of what they were up to at the beginnings of their careers.

REASONS TO GO: The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous.
REASONS TO STAY: Some of the acting is stilted. There are a few plot contrivances that take any sort of organic feel the movie had generated.
FAMILY VALUES:  There is violence, sexuality and some mild profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT:  Gabrielle Stone is the daughter of famed actress Dee Wallace Stone.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/24/16: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet. Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Rebound
FINAL RATING: 4.5/10
NEXT: Living in the Age of Airplanes