Black Dog

Un Certain Regard Prize, 2024 Cannes Film Festival

In this quietly ravishing story of companionship and a universe in flux, ex-convict Lang leaves prison to find his dwindling hometown overrun with stray dogs. It’s not just the dogs who have gone off the rails. With a looming 100-year eclipse and Beijing’s impending 2008 Olympics marking the whole town for renovation, everyone seems dazed in the dusky light of the in-between. But Lang still has very ordinary threats to dodge: a snake butcher with a grudge, thugs-turned-town-leaders, a frayed father gone off the grid. With a loudspeaker blaring civic duty and no plans for the future, Lang joins the local canine control, only to discover an uncanny bond with an unregistered and elusive black dog.

Superstar Eddie Peng’s puppy dog eyes silently take in BLACK DOG’s moody tableaus. Time is turned upside down by urban renewal, its whiff of ruin mixing with promises of a better tomorrow. Social upheaval leaves even leisure cultures behind – an abandoned bungee cord park, an empty zoo, social commentary underscored by a cameo by Jia Zhang-ke as the leader of the dog catchers.

But companionship and repair between souls are top of mind for blockbuster filmmaker Guan Hu, who returns to his indie film roots with this Cannes winner. In an eclipse scene scored entirely with Pink Floyd, a veritable menagerie roams across emptied streets and nocturnal crevices. Lions, snakes, dogs – none are truly wild, for in BLACK DOG, animals are almost cosmically entwined with their humans, making animal control laws absurd. The dogs running the city will keep good company with each other (and stray humans) as they always have.

– Christina Ree