Latvia Extends Animation Streak at Tribeca with "Dog of God"

This past March, history was made when Gints Zilbalodis' Flow took home the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Not only was this the first Oscar for the filmmaker, but the fist Academy Award to ever be earned by a Latvian film. Months later, the golden statuette currently resides in the Latvian National Museum of Art, along with Flow's accompanying Golden Globe. This month, the small Eastern European nation has made an appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival with yet another animated film, this time Dog of God by siblings, Lauris and Raitis Ābele. A haunting project that deals with the intersection of religion and human sexuality in one of the festival's most bizarre films yet.

Due to the success of Flow last year, spotlight has been on Latvia to see what they will do next. But if you had any hope that Dog of God would be anything like Flow, you'll be sorely mistaken. This is far from the cute story of a black cat navigating a colorful world, instead it's a nightmarish, borderline-pornographic romp through Eastern Europe, described by the festival itself as "aggressively adult."

For the majority of this film's runtime, you'll be wondering "what the hell is going on?" Similar to the works of David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorwosky, especially the ladder, with a lot more religious symbolism. Audiences will find it slightly reminiscent of The Holy Mountain at times. This isn't a movie that spoon-feeds you any answers, but there are definitely times you wish it would. It'll make the least amount of sense to those who are not familiar with Latvian folklore, but something tells me that even the most proud Latvians will find themselves scratching their heads.

Even the description on the film's official Letterboxd page is baffling: "When a stolen relic sparks witchcraft accusations, an 80-year old self-proclaimed werewolf named the 'Dog of God' arrives with a mysterious gift: 'The Devil's Balls'." ...Excuse me?

Dog of God is further proof that animation is a medium, not a genre, and by that I mean this film is 100% not for children. There is plenty of adult-aimed animation out there but Dog of God is something else entirely. It is an intensely sexual film that borders on pornographic in some very non-traditional ways. As in, characters having carnal encounters with eldritch Lovecraftian beings. Critic, Michael Davey on Letterboxd described the film as "literally just animated porn. How this was ever accepted into a film festival is beyond me."

Although I would argue that Dog of God has a lot more creative merit than just "animated porn," I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed the film from start to finish.

Dog of God is a unique film, visually. Employing the very old animation technique of rotoscoping, which entails animating over existing footage. This results in a colorful, visually-striking film that moves like life. While aesthetically beautiful, Dog of God unfortunately falls into the realm of style-over-substance far too often. There's only so long audiences can go without knowing what's going on. After a while, bewilderment turns into frustration and visuals aren't enough to keep an audience entertained.

I don't doubt that this film will find the right audience, which is probably the same people who hold Fantastic Planet in a high regard. Dog of God is a film that refuses to be everyone's cup of tea, which is commendable, but I don't think it will achieve nearly the same amount of success as Flow. In the meantime, I look forward to see what more animation Latvia has to offer.