Original Title: Fehér isten (Hungary)
Directed by: Kornél Mundruczó
Cast: Zsófia Psotta, Sándor Zsótér
If you are an adventurous movie seeker, the “White God” is the one you are looking for.
At first, the movie looks like another version of Disney dog movies with a girl and bad parents. But the story keeps shifting to unknown directions.
I admit that the film is not an easy and pleasant watching. Not too exclusively but very powerfully, the movie depicts how a girl and a dog cope with the problems around them. While keeping tensions from the start to the end, the film is packed with actions, horrors, and touching dramas. Movies from the animal’s perspective, especially that of a dog, are not new, but the “White God” is very unique due to its very critical stance on social issues.
It is interesting to watch how the plot flows. The discrimination of mixed breed dogs by authority triggers the story. Street dogs are disliked, separated, and persecuted. The second part of the story is the struggles of both lives of the girl and the dog after the separation. The last part is the revenge or revolution of dogs against their oppressor in a very violent way, followed by the reconciliation between the father and the girl as well as between the dog and the girl. It is quite a scene that hundreds of dogs are running along the road. – Around 250 dogs were used in the film.
The film reminds me of another movie, ‘White Dog’ by Samuel Fuller, which you should not miss.
Scriptorium 