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ASTRA 2022

Crítica: Whose Dog Am I?

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- El satírico documental de Róbert Lakatos es una exploración repleta de ironía de la idea de identidad

Crítica: Whose Dog Am I?

Este artículo está disponible en inglés.

Directed by Romanian-Hungarian helmer Róbert Lakatos, the documentary Whose Dog Am I? [+lee también:
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was screened in the Romanian Competition of the 29th Astra Film Festival before having its international premiere in the Free Spirit Competition of the Warsaw Film Festival (14-23 October). Starting with an intriguing warning by the director (“This film, like any other film, for that matter, is a manipulation”), the documentary is a playful exploration of various stances and discourses in Transylvanian politics.

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For some viewers, Whose Dog Am I? will appear to be the innocuous endeavour of a man trying to create a new breed of dog (while finding a mate for his elderly Kuvasz dog, Talpeş), but the documentary is much more than that. An ethnic Hungarian living in Transylvania, the director takes a moment to explain, with a history lesson, why his quest is so important to him: formerly a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Transylvania is now part of Romania, with more than one million people identifying as ethnic Hungarians living there. Talk of autonomy, separatism and segregation (and what was called “forced Romanisation” in the communist era) has fuelled an ongoing conflict between the Hungarian minority and the Romanian majority, a conflict whose main topics and arguments are playfully explored by Lakatos in his feature.

The political and social context is extremely important in understanding this documentary that, at times, is a mockumentary. At one point, we see the director attending a fair where politicians hailing from the Hungarian community ask the audience what should be done in order to improve the well-being of the minority and increase its presence in Romania. A very straight-faced Lakatos proposes the creation of new, Hungarian dog breeds, and very straight-faced politicians seem to think this is a marvellous idea.

The director stays true to the warning he gives at the very beginning of the film as he launches into a long string of actions to provoke everyone in front of his camera, from his parents to dog breeders and representatives of the International Canine Federation. His comments and questions may seem completely harmless and solely dog-related – and at times, their underlying meaning is completely lost on his interlocutors – but not to the audience, as the director sticks firmly to his initial intentions: to discuss Hungarian identity from various points of view. Although the filmmaker’s approach is always casual, the movie is permeated by a certain feeling of alienation, particular to a community that is more prone to looking towards Budapest for an identity check than towards Bucharest.

Probably the funniest aspect of the documentary are the dogs’ interactions, which Lakatos spices up with provocative, tongue-in-cheek thought bubbles. They become an almost exhaustive list of tropes encountered in the Romanian discourse regarding ethnic Hungarians – for example, “You live in Romania; you should be able to speak Romanian.” With this plus the director’s propensity for theatrics and remarks such as “Here in Transylvania, people are afraid of wild beasts, not of thieves, like they are in Hungary,” Whose Dog Am I? succeeds in adding layers of meaning to its sometimes dumbfounding and always entertaining approach to ethno-politics.

Whose Dog Am I? was produced by Other Films (Hungary) and MicroFILM (Romania). MicroMULTILATERAL will distribute the film in Romania starting on 4 November, after a Bucharest premiere in the selection of the 13th edition of Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest (21-30 October).

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(Traducción del inglés)

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