Stray Dogs (2004) User Reviews

Stray Dogs

[rajdoctor · 7/10 · 7 January 2007]

I was traveling in the tram and came across a Dutch magazine. I do not know Dutch – not to read or write or speak, but just to make myself familiar with the local magazine, I browsed through it. The magazine gave weekly events. At the end of the magazine – it gives reviews of movies. I was attracted to a photograph of a poor small child and a dog running in the midst of desert. This image attracted me and I started trying to read the Dutch review and to some extend understood that it was an Iranian movie set in Afghanistan. The review ended by the words of the movie "The Bicycle Thieves". This interested me more.

Amsterdam publishes once a week – an English newspaper called "The Weekly". It is delivered at offices, hotels, some key newspaper stalls all around Amsterdam – but because of limited circulation is exhausted within a day. I was able to get hold of this news weekly. It elaborately gives film reviews – and after reading all the reviews, I came across the review of "The Stray Dogs". I read it, and came to know that it is a movie that is inspired from "The Bicycle Thieves". It is also an acclaimed movie and had won awards at various international festivals. I found out that it was only running in the evening shows at Museum Theatre in Vondelpark.

I asked my colleague Mr.Andreas Hensel – who was interested in neo-realistic movies like "The Bicycle Thieves", whether he was interested? He told me that he was, but was engaged for a couple of days. Thus I decided to go to see the movie alone.

I was excited! I knew the movie was in Arabic with Dutch sub-titles – but I was undeterred.

There were only four people in the movie hall – two females and two males.

This movie as I mentioned earlier is inspired by "The Bicycle Thieves" and it is a tribute to the long lasting impact it has left on the movie making art. Even after more than 50 years – it is so heartening to know that some good movies are inspired and made on neo-realistic cinema.

Like "The Bicycle Thieves" the story has a simple story line.

The story is set in Afghanistan – during the Tabilan years. It starts with two children – an elder boy and younger girl – who are shown as rag-pickers – rescuing a stray dog – from chasing kids who want to torch the dog to fire in a cave hole. Immediately after the first scene one gets to know the huge cinematic backdrop the visuals are providing. Rough and sandy terrain of Afghanistan is brilliantly captured by the director.

The mother of these children is imprisoned by the authorities (due to language constraint I could not understand why) and every evening these children get access to go into the prison to sleep with their mother. But due to change of policy – the guards do not allow the children to go into the prison.

The children try desperately to get access to go and meet and sleep with their mother – they beg, cry, and even get angry and throw stones at the guard. But un-successful in all their attempts – they try to steal something – thinking that their stealing would lead them to being caught and land them up in the prison.

In their quest we are exposed to the nearly tribal culture of male dominated aggressive Afghanistan culture. The dog fight scenes, the robbing of the cows head by the children, the stealing of vegetable bag of a lady etc. are pictured poignantly. One feels sorry for the boys – because in all their attempts they are caught – smacked a little and set off free.

But the cruel culture of Afghanistan in the back-drop leaves the audience's stomach churning with disgust. This lead to one female audience leaving the movie hall in mid-way, giving away sighs of anguish on the incredible harsh images shown of Afghan cultural life.

At one point of time, the children are inspired to see a movie "The Bicycle Thieves" and after seeing the movie the elder boy tries to steal a bicycle and is caught by the police. And at that time – we as audience feel a sigh of relief – that at last their mission is over. But not yet! The elder son is taken by the police to a different prison from where the mother is kept. The young child the girl is left on the miserable streets alone. The girl tries to chase the police van that carries her brother – but she is too small and young to run and keep pace with the vehicle.

The movie ends up with mother crying in one prison, her elder son crying to go back outside to take care of his sister and the young sister sitting outside the mother's prison alone.

Like "The Bicycle Thieves" the movie ends in a realistic and pessimistic note – leaving a lump in our throat, as if saying to us to change the ending – to a happy ending.

I was pleased to see this movie – and that too in succession of "The Bicycle Thieves". Recommended!

Outstanding Iranian/Afghan film with terrific child leads (and an adorable dog)

[saareman · 9/10 · 23 September 2004]

[some plot spoilers] I am a sucker for dog movies in any case, but combine an adorable Scottish Terrier with the two wonderful child actors who are the leads in this film and you have a winner. The performance by the 7 year old girl Gol Ghoti is particularly outstanding. The young boy Zahed also has several great moments especially some of a black comedic vein in exchanges with a jail guard.

Briefly the plot involves a sister and brother who are 'night prisoners' at a prison where their mother is being kept on some sort of bigamy/adultery charges as she had remarried when her Taliban husband had disappeared for 5 years during various wars. Her second husband dies but the first husband returns and has her jailed, then he himself is jailed by the Americans for being Taliban. The kids are able to stay overnight at least with the mother while gathering wood and picking for articles from the dump during the day to make a living. Then the prison governor changes the rules and the kids are out on the street at night as well. They have adopted a stray dog in the meantime after rescuing it from a gang of kids who were tormenting it. They and their pet are collectively the 'stray dogs' of the title.

The kids then proceed thru a comedy of errors to try to get caught stealing so that they can be sentenced to prison and rejoin their mother. A charming sequence is done in tribute to Vittorio De Sica's 'The Bicycle Thief' which the kids actually go to see at the Kabul cinema in order to gather tips and inspiration for their attempted crimes.

A lot of this probably sounds very bleak and depressing but the spirit of the kids, their charming dog and their love for each other and family lets this film rise above the harsh circumstances that they face and convey a heartwarming (and at times heartbreaking) tale of endurance and love.

This is the 2nd film by Iranian director Meshkini who developed the idea while working on scouting the Afghan locations for Samira Makhmalbaf's 'At Five in the Afternoon'.

So far (Sept 2004) I believe this has only played at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals but it hopefully will receive a wider distribution. In 90 minutes this film lets you feel more for the Afghan experience than many other and longer histories or documentaries could convey.

9/10

very beautiful movie

[teresa-casillas-carignan · 10/10 · 29 May 2008]

At first I was hesitant to watch this film since at the beginning the look of the two children frankly drew me away from it thinking it would be very depressing. But since there was nothing better to watch on my crappy cable system, I stayed and do not regret it one bit. I fell in love with the two characters. Their performance was unbelievable since they are very young and not professionals. I did not find the end very sad since it leaves you with a sense of hope because the little girl had such a strong spirit that you want to feel she will be alright despite the terrible social and cultural situations that prevail in those countries.

Afghanistan Diaries

[tieman64 · 27 January 2011]

Marzieh Meshkini directs "Stray Dogs", a film whose title conjures up Kurosawa's "Stray Dog" but whose plot recalls De Sica's "Bicycle Thieves" and Bunuel's "Los Olvidados".

The story? Zahed and Goi-Ghotai are a couple of streetwise kids – played not by professional actors but by real kids pulled from the slums of Kabul – who struggle to survive on the riverbanks of Kabul, the largest city in Afghanistan. With their parents in jail, the duo spend their days rummaging through filth and debris, desperately looking for anything they can eat, sell or burn for warmth. They aren't alone in their hardships, though, as Meshkini makes it clear that thousands of similar "lost children" populate the war torn country.

De Sica's influence is given a nod during one scene in which the kids watch "Bicycle Thieves" at a grimy theatre. Seeing the film gives them an idea. If they get arrested for stealing, they'll be thrown into jail and will therefore be put back into contact with their parents. Won't they?

Of course things go tragically wrong. Before this, however, the film touches upon the effects of the US-Taliban war in Afghanistan, Meshkini frequently cutting away to US war planes high in the sky. The slum children themselves express their contempt for the invaders by bullying a little dog (the stray dog of the title), an animal which eventually becomes a clunky metaphor for stolen childhood and the replacement of love with warfare.

Though the film is designed to show Western audiences the effect warfare and invasion (be it instigated by the US or Russia) have on foreign cultures and families, it's also critical of a certain outdated tribalism. For example, the father of our heroes is a Taliban who was moved to a mysterious US prison. With her husband absent for five years, the kids' mother then remarried, which in the eyes of both local law and culture makes her a "whore" and subject to death by stoning. So the film continually strikes a rare balance. It points out the adaptability and resourcefulness of children, whilst also pointing out their limitations, dependencies and fragility. Likewise, it denounces meddlesome foreign superpowers for the various dislocations they cause, as well as being critical of a certain backward, local tribalism.

Of course like most of these art-house, "humanitarian" films, "Stray Dogs" is doomed never to find the audience it's desperately trying to target. In contrast to similar works by Italian and Japanese film-makers during the 40s, all of which were spawned by conquered, war torn countries, and all of which featured lowly heroes navigating the rubble infested, post war ruins of Italy or Japan, this new wave of post Iraq/Afghanistan war films falls upon few eyeballs. In the mainstream, Michael Winterbottom's "In This World" and "The Road to Guantanamo" forced westerners to live through the eyes of those at the end of their government's gun-sights, but few watched even Winterbottom's relatively crowd pleasing works.

In contrast, European and Japanese cinema of the 1940s and early 50s, which tended to focus heavily on proletarians, peasants, homeless families and children, all of whom struggled to survive or climb out of the literal and economic rubble of World War 2 (and of course the droppings of the Atomic bombs), found no trouble finding audiences and critical praise. Indeed, these conflicts or traumas gave rise to a number of seminal films, such as "Germany, Year Zero", "Nettezza Urbana", "Bicycle Thieves", "La Terra Trema", "Stromboli", "Stray Dogs" and a slew of Japanese films I'm not and probably never will be familiar with. Which is not to say that Middle Eastern cinema, and Iranian cinema in particular, hasn't blossomed hugely in the past 2 decades, but that there's a sense that we're now simply getting the Middle Eastern versions of stories that more economically advanced countries already got out of their systems decades ago.

8/10 – Worth one viewing.

Wanted the VCD/DVD for this film

[samitajana · 10/10 · 24 July 2006]

It is an overwhelming film. Haunting, almost. Almost like a real life documentary -- So realistic was the presentation. I have seen the movie at the OSIAN Film Festival in Delhi in 2005. Even after viewing other movies at this year's (2006) OSIAN Film festival this year I am longing to see this film again and again. A simple but socially so relevant film.

Would like to get a VCD/DVD of this film. Where and how can I get it. Is a dependable online seller available? Can anyone guide me. I would even like to see other movies of this film maker. I stay in Delhi, India.

The dog was good

[thecatcanwait · 16 November 2011]

Scruffy little homeless urchins plus fluffy little lost dog = cuteness overload.

And yet by 20 minutes in i didn't feel engaged. The direction was too withdrawn, drama too withheld, the narrative lacking compulsion or even much purpose.

I guess I'm getting more resistant to Iranian films like this with wide-eyed and innocent cute kids. I can see the manipulation involved: pick street urchins up on location; they aren't going to act because they can't act; but you can model them on how to look sympathetically photogenic. The method of delivering script is feed each kid the line they have to say just before the camera is pointed at them; then splice together these separate takes of dialogue in the edit afterwards. This avoids the kids having to act with one another or react in close ups; you just train each kid to hold still the reaction shot you want. But these close ups get to look too (com) posed, repeating the same static expressions; because the kids aren't interiorising the feelings they're meant to be experiencing: they mimic pretty – as in cute – facades of sad or angry, rather than enact or dramatise them from within.

So mostly you get scenes in which the dialogue being spoken looks disconnected and sounds disengaged. Which may be why i felt similarly disconnected and disengaged.

Anyway, the little dog does lots of little barking on cue – with about the same level of subtlety as these kids delivering their dialogue.

I'm surprised how slight, even facile, i found this film considering how entranced I was by her (Marzieh Meshkini) first film The Day i Became a Woman.