Dogman Film Review, Cannes 17th May 2018
I will always remember my dad’s favourite joke: “Why do dogs lick their balls? Because they can.” Like most dads, he likes to repeat the joke at every opportunity — appropriate, when a dog is actually licking his balls; or inappropriate, when there is no sign of any creature’s balls being licked, save that of the image now freshly in the mind of those within earshot of said joke. (And no doubt now in your mind, too). It kind of felt that the more he repeated the joke, the less intended humour it carried, and the more distant longing I could sense in his eyes: the 25 years working at a successful investment bank, the properties, the time spent educating himself on the correct use of the gerund, the family he’d helped to create — would he give it all up, for just one Sting-like opportunity to taste his own oysters?
These were the thoughts that accompanied me as I took the 25-minute walk from my AirBnB to the Palais de Festivals in Cannes. Of course, I was actually only thinking of the topics in the above paragraph for a matter of seconds; 25 minutes would have been a painfully and unnecessarily long time to think about your own father somehow gaining superyoga abilities beyond his years, and, rather than using this medical miracle as a force for good, like helping an old lady pick up her spilt groceries in a crowded tube carriage; instead deciding to perform a peculiar sex act that would in reality only provide mild, but not climactic, pleasure. The rest of the time I thought about other things, like why is Head&Shoulders so vehemently anti-dandruff? It’s not like the other shampoos are pro-dandruff. It’s almost as if there’s some latent dandruff loving deep within the echelons of the Head&Shoulders middle-management infrastructure.
I reached the queue for the famous Lumière cinema with the assured opinion that, at that present moment, no one, not even myself, would want to put their tongue anywhere near my balls. It was hot. I was wearing chinos.
I waddled, straight-legged across the red carpet, such was the vaccuum-pack effect of cotton on sweat. It was my first time within this prestigious movie theatre; as I entered the foyer, it reminded me of a corner of a Zara, where someone had forgotten to put any clothes.
Finally settling into my seat, I was greeted by an old French man, who wore an expression that made me think he’d been waiting for me his whole life. “You like films?” he said, in broken English. “I like films”. He was clearly on advanced-level Tinder chat, and figured now was the time to move away from digital.
Now, I never read reviews of films myself (which loser would??? Eh??????) so all I ever have to go on, is the title. Coincidentally, I had come up with my own film idea entitled ‘Dogman’, a couple of years ago, during a cider-drinking trip in Poland. It was about a canine superhero who, when faced with a threat to the universe, would get fucking excited about some random other thing, like a man tying his shoelaces, and think that part of the process of saving the universe might somehow involve sniffing the shoelaces. And then sniffing the man. And then whining about what the man was doing to the poor shoelaces. (I’m still in talks with The Weinstein Company about the script, although I’m a little bit worried as I haven’t heard from them for a while.)
So imagine my panic that someone — some arty, Cannes-loving, probably-Medium-loving prick — might well have stolen my idea, bugging my enjoyable alcohol-based Eastern Europe trip like an incompetent Stasi operative tasked with uncovering the most useless information possible. Maybe I wasn’t drinking authentic Polish cider?? But instead some curious potion that made me super suggestible, and speak REALLY LOUDLY IN THE DIRECTION OF PEOPLE WITH MULLETS WEARING LONG SHINY MACS. Did the Stasi have mullets? I kind of hoped they did. They of all people could get away with one. I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. BUT MAYBE THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT.
In actual fact, ‘Dogman’ is about a petty criminal who also looks after dogs. In a dog beauty parlour. It’s as ridiculous as it sounds, despite the edgy camera work. It’s set in the Italian version of Clacton-on-sea, and follows the title character (OK, he’s not actually called ‘Dogman’…the pseudo-cider must’ve wiped my memory) and his struggles with the most caricature-cliché-idiot gangster character you’ll ever see outside of the Fast & Furious franchises. Seriously. He loses money in an arcade so he head-butts the screen. Like an over-acting Arnie. (Although having said that, I once destroyed a computer mouse after getting Kidderminster Harriers to the FA Cup Final, and fucking Keith Gillespie went and scored a last-minute winner against me. “Leave it boy,” said my imaginary friend, Hubert, as I lay sobbing on the floor, desperately smashing the last bits of injection-moulded plastic against the sticky linoleum floor, “that mouse ain’t gonna be rollin’ no more.” He sounded a lot like Chiwetel Ejiofor’s character from 12 Years A Slave, come to think of it. Shit. Maybe Hubert wasn’t my imaginary friend after all, but some reincarnated ghost slave who’d somehow ended up in a cottage in Suffolk?? I should never have let him pick formations.)
The problem with ‘Dogman’ was that everything felt a bit lame and hammy. The main actor Marcello Fonte, cast for no other apparent reason than because he looked a bit weird, also had an annoyingly squeaky voice, like that of a guy who has a fetish for sticking chocolate bars up his arse, but after running out of smooth Mars Bars, he has to make do with Toblerones, until his long-suffering wife Mary comes back from the shops with the box of Celebrations she’d been planning to give her nephew for winning that golf tournament. (Poor Mary, she thought she was marrying a sociology professor who she could spend long nights with discussing interesting topics, such as Baudrillardian hyperreality, or Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomatic theory of data interpretation; but no. All he wants to do is stuff choccies up his bum). Seriously though, this guy’s voice really began to grate. And as a result it removed all authenticity and plausability to the role, as if being a dog beautician and small time coke dealer who takes his young daughter snorkelling in some random Club Med resort from time to time was believable enough already…
Undoubtedly the stars of the show were the dogs themselves, although barely relevant were they to the story. I can almost imagine the director, Matteo Garrone, having a meeting with his producers, after his boring, one-dimensional, shallow script had been rejected by all worthy investors. “Who’s next on the list?” “Well, Pedigree Chum just called, but there would be some changes to make.” (There really were two random holiday snorkelling montages, as if Garrone had also secured funding from Wizz Air).
The realist shots of dogs barking, getting groomed, whining in curiosity were beautiful and refreshing in a sea of tedious human machismo (there were hardly any female characters in the whole film, save for the brief underdeveloped functionality of the young daughter and the gangster’s turbo-clichéd Mama. I know I’ve used the word ‘clichéd’ a lot, but really, this film was graded in cliché). The only disappointment was that there was not one single shot of a dog licking his balls — maybe then it could’ve been used as some deep comment on the difference between humans and animals, how animals seek pleasure in the immediacy, whereas humans are always striving for the unattainable. As Robert Browning wrote:
“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what’s a heaven for?”
But no. There was really nothing deep nor intelligent about this film — it’s depressing that Cannes put it in their competition. Quirky premise and/or facial features does not a compelling story make. Apparently Marcello Fonte even won the Palme for Best Actor — god help all those normal-looking actors struggling for a living, squeezing out the last of their teeth-whitening toothpaste, deliberating whether to take that job in their step-father’s online water-butt delivery business.
As the credits rolled, and I was preparing my loins for another blast of southern French oven-air, a voice came to me in the darkness: “I like dogs. Do you like dogs?”
It was time to leave.
JACKO’S VERDICT: 2.5 out of 5
