BAXTER
S. Self
I was wondering if anyone has seen the french film : BAXTER ?
It is about life through the eyes of a wacko dog.
Curious to hear others opinions of the flick.
ss
Ellis
Did you bring this up because of Apt Pupil? I liked Baxter. Evil as
percieved from the viewpoint of a dog that has no concept of evil. Evil
to the dog is age, decrepitness and a lack of aggressive interaction
with the world. A little Nazi predator makes the perfect master. An old
lady with misguided , misplaced ideas about affection for the animal has
her life ruined by the dog. Just almost to black to be funny.
PJ
<Pine.A41.4.05.981105...@aagaard98.u.washington.edu>,
"S. Self" <sks...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
>
>
> I was wondering if anyone has seen the french film : BAXTER ?
> It is about life through the eyes of a wacko dog.
>
> Curious to hear others opinions of the flick.
>
> ss
This was one of the pleasantest surprizes I've ever had out of a
film. I stayed away from it, writing it off as an animal flick
(which I dislike generally but never so much as when they are about
dogs) until, with some routine inking to do I let it run while the tv
was on (SBS, Australia's multicultural channel and superb source for
difficult to access films). It didn't take long for me to stop
drawing and start being rapt. I guess it takes the French to wrench
an animal story from the jaws of cuteness and cast it into
a delighfully uncomfortable realism.
It's like Lassie written by The Marquis De Sade with narration by
Celine. In fact it must have been the voice of the dog that got me.
It's like an old world weary man, nothing like the loveable kid's
voice I was dreading.
Incredible film. The dog's thoughts are written to be strange enough
to set it apart from humanity (he calls television a blue light) but
familiar enough (especially regarding violence or sex) to be
immediately familiar, all without the slightest ghost of cute wafting
along the screen. None too fond of humans, either, come to it, this
flick has something to say about everything it sees and a lot of it
is very genuinely disturbing, particularly enything to do with the
boy who ends up owning Baxter, an extremely nasty creation whose
future life is imaginable as either a demagogue or a serial killer.
The sole animal film not involving sharks that I'll see once and more
than once.
If you don't like dog films, see this one.
--
PJ
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Marc42
it off the video shelves and said "Hey, talking dogs!" Then they took
it home and plopped their kids in front of it. I think I gave 15
refunds for it the first month it was out.
Marc
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Scott
> Did you bring this up because of Apt Pupil? I liked Baxter. Evil as
> percieved from the viewpoint of a dog that has no concept of evil. Evil
> to the dog is age, decrepitness and a lack of aggressive interaction
> with the world. A little Nazi predator makes the perfect master. An old
> lady with misguided , misplaced ideas about affection for the animal has
> her life ruined by the dog. Just almost to black to be funny.
I, too, found _Baxter_ to be one of the better foreign movies I've seen.
I saw it with a friend who particularly liked Baxter's final words:
"Never be obedient."
Philo D.
<Pine.A41.4.05.981105...@aagaard98.u.washington.edu>, "S.
Self" <sks...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> I was wondering if anyone has seen the french film : BAXTER ?
> It is about life through the eyes of a wacko dog.
>
> Curious to hear others opinions of the flick.
>
I loved it. I didn't know it involved an evil kid until I saw it.
--
Philo D. <do...@earthling.net>
Philo D.
moc.ss...@24cram.reverse.it.smartguy (Marc42) wrote:
> Of course, here in America, thousands of slack jawed idiots snatched
> it off the video shelves and said "Hey, talking dogs!" Then they took
> it home and plopped their kids in front of it. I think I gave 15
> refunds for it the first month it was out.
I thought "slack jawed idiots" never buy subtitled movies. Did you
forget to tell them it was subtitled?
--
Philo D. <do...@earthling.net>
Marc42
Slackjawed idiots don't bother to read the back of the box. (There is
also a rather large warning that says "Not intended for children".)
They just rent anything that's new and complain if they don't like it
or if it wasn't what they expected. It's not my job to decide who's
smart enough or cool enough to enjoy a good movie.