MY LIFE AS A DOG
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: When a misfit child goes to live with
his uncle's strange family, he finds himself as a human
being. There is a lot more to this film than is initially
apparent. Rating: +2.
This is one of those statements that get me into trouble, but I think that Bergman has given a sort of image to Swedish film that Swedish film might be better off without. When people think of Swedish film what comes to mind is dry intellectual exercises, with a lot of symbolism, that if you could understand would only give you a multitude of reasons why the characters are depressed. This may not be fair in general--even of just Bergman films--but it is the impression much of the public has gotten. Friends of mine have to be coerced to go see even a subtitled film. Well, MY LIFE AS A DOG is subtitled, but it is worth the effort to see, and then some.
The main character, a young boy, is not having a very good childhood. He is fatherless, his mother is dying of tuberculosis, and he gets into a lot of trouble, mostly due to the coercion of other children. But everybody knows he is a bad boy. He doesn't fit in with other children or his family. Finally he gets packed off to live with an uncle. Suddenly everything clicks into place. His uncle's family loves life and accepts people for what they are. They are eccentric, but likably so. The eccentricity is done believably, not exaggerated as the family was in Capra's YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU.
MY LIFE AS A DOG is not just a fine portrait of childhood and how children react to life's problems; it is a comparison of philosophies of life. The main character's mother wants to change him to make him a more convenient child to deal with. The closer he is to the ideal of being seen and not heard, the better. The uncle's family accepts him as a human instead of a machine-tooled component. They revel in human diversity. Under their influence he blooms as a human being rather than dwelling on morbid thoughts. As a portrait of the world from a child's eyes, a sort of child's testament, MY LIFE AS A DOG is a better film than Bergman's FANNY AND ALEXANDER, but is a cut below Boorman's HOPE AND GLORY. Rate it a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu
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