Alsatians are a girl's best friend

Irène Jacob, Daniela Vega

“Animals came from over the horizon.  They belonged there and here.  Likewise they were mortal and immortal.  An animal’s blood flowed like human blood, but its species was undying and each lion was Lion and each ox was Ox.”
                        John Berger, Why Look at Animals. 1977
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And each dog was Dog.  A live animal in a film can seem to offer a more vivid intimation both of mortality and continuity than does an actor, an extra, a familiar landmark.  Our awareness that we are seeing a dog portraying a dog is of a different order to our awareness that we are seeing Ingrid Bergman portraying Ilsa Lund.  Although we now expect the routine "no animals were harmed..." disclaimer and an animal trainer's appearance in the credits, the presence of a dog alerts us consciously to the process and artifice of film making.

​Animals were certainly in at the beginnings of moving photographs.   Writers such as Rebecca Solnit and Jonathan Burt have described the importance of animal motion studies in the technological and philosophical origins of cinema.

"Kate turning"  Eadweard Muybridge, 1880s

One of the workers leaving the factory in the one-shot Lumière Brothers’ Sortie d’Usine, shown at their historic public screening at the Grand Café in Paris on 28th December 1895, is a dog.

Dog story - Sortie d’Usine

The dog makes his or her entrance about twenty seconds into the film, with lively encouragement from a large man in a work apron, who presumably is not on his way home but has been assigned to ensure that the dog performs as required - an early example of an animal wrangler blatantly in shot.  As the gates close at the end of the film we briefly see the dog heading back into the factory yard, this time not accompanied by apron-man, so perhaps called or whistled from inside the gates in expectation of a reward.
 
The opening of the gates at the start and their closing at the end is sometimes cited as evidence that this one minute film is not plotless but has a narrative arc, however simple. Equally it could be seen as a short film about a dog.  Most of the stream of workers seem oblivious to the camera and doubtless have been instructed to ignore it, but the dog is clearly performing and being coached, albeit visibly, in an “as himself” role.
 
The Lumière’s German rivals, Max and Emil Skladanowsky, projected films to a paying audience in Berlin several weeks before the Paris Grand Café show.  Although their projector was the weight of a bullock and their film transport mechanism depended on inserting metal eyelets into the film stock by hand, their subject matter was right on the money.  Not for them, things you could see any day of the week - a train pulling into a station or someone feeding a baby with a spoon - the highlight of their presentation was a boxing kangaroo.
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In America, Thomas Edison’s company developed and privately demonstrated a film projector at around the same time as the Skladanowskys and the Lumières, but Edison’s favoured method of distributing films was via his own “peep show” Kinetoscope Parlours.  This neatly provides a vivid figurative demonstration of the voyeuristic essence of cinema, while for Edison it ensured that every customer was using, and paying for, some Edison electricity.
 
By the time the Edison Manufacturing Company made Electrocuting an Elephant in 1904 it is probably just as well that their films were usually viewed in the privacy of a Kinetoscope booth and only after the insertion of a coin.  This gruesome spectacle records the killing of a female elephant named Topsy at Luna Park on Coney Island.  Topsy had killed at least one man in retaliation for cruel treatment and her owners condemned her to public execution despite some intervention by an animal welfare organisation.
 
The Edison company supplied both the bespoke copper electrocution shoes and the necessary 7000 volt current for the killing of Topsy, and filmed the event.  The film appears to have survived because Edison, ever mindful of protecting their assets, deposited a paper-print copy with the Library of Congress as insurance against breach of copyright.

​ Topsy is led out to die

​The Edison company already had form in facilitating animal electrocution, their facilities having previously been made available for experiments in killing stolen domestic dogs and cats.  It seems  unlikely that Thomas Edison himself had any part in Topsy’s execution and his defenders say that if  electrocution had not been made available the animal would have suffered a far more cruel end by hanging.  By registering the title as Electrocuting an Elephant the film seeks to identify itself as a quasi-scientific document – Electrocuting Topsy would have given it away as the peepshow snuff porn it was likely consumed as.
 
In Britain the following year Cecil Hepworth, established in his own studio and with nearly a decade of film-making experience, released Rescued by Rover.  Co-directed by Lewin Fitzhamon, this is a “stolen baby” genre piece with a dog hero.  Due to a young nursemaid’s carelessness, a middle class family’s baby is abducted.  The family dog, on his own initiative, sets out on a search and finds the baby in the attic of a terrace of slum cottages.  The dog returns home then guides the father to the rescue and the family are reunited.

Rover returns: Mrs Hepworth, baby Barbara, Blair, Cecil Hepworth

The secondary roles were played by professional actors and the family were played by Cecil Hepworth himself and his wife and baby daughter.  The hero of the piece was played by the Hepworth’s own Collie, Blair.  Blair has the advantage of appearing in most of his scenes with people he is familiar with, including the infant girl.  But nevertheless his training and disposition result in an immaculate performance, including some complex series of actions within single shots - such as his search for the baby along a terrace of several dwellings, trying various front doors and diligently ignoring a number of human extras lounging in doorways.

​RITA

Anyone who has seen Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colours: Red (1994) is likely to remember that there’s a dog in it. Rita, an Alsatian bitch, is hit by the car of the film’s protagonist Valentine (Irène Jacob), which incident leads to Valentine meeting the retired judge and obsessive eavesdropper Joseph Kern (Jean-Louis Trintignant).  If you saw the film a long time ago you may have forgotten that, in one of numerous doublings, there is also a second dog, Auguste’s dog.  Auguste (Jean-Pierre Lorit) is a young lawyer studying to qualify as a judge whose deluded love life in the present appears to mirror that of Kern decades ago.
 
Valentine and Auguste live in nearly adjacent buildings but spend most of the film failing to encounter one another while both being in relationships with other unsuitable partners.  In the controversial ending of the film, Valentine and August are two of only seven survivors of a ferry disaster, and a briefly glimpsed TV newsreel suggests that they have indeed now met for the first time on the rescue boat.  Kern, who may have predictive powers or may just be an exceptionally shrewd reader of people, has foreseen that Valentine will be happy with someone eventually.  We are, as ever with Kieslowski, invited to tease ourselves with whether that someone is or isn’t Auguste.
 
The Alsatian Rita is diegetically present during just under half of the film’s 90 minute running time - including lengthy dialogue scenes between Valentine and Kern during which Rita is present in Kern’s house but largely unseen - although an ornament representing a pair of dogs is often in shot behind Valentine, suggesting the omnipresence of Dog.
 
As several commentators have pointed out, Rita functions as a kind of messenger or agent for Kern, pulling Valentine into his orbit and ensuring that she will return there, even after the conclusion of the film.

​ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENT

​We first meet Rita when Valentine’s car strikes her, causing, as we later find out, only minor injuries.  A few moments earlier, in the background of a wide shot of a dark street, we have briefly seen a female extra crossing the road with a different dog on a leash, thus subtlety planting the idea of Dog in our minds in preparation for a significant event.

Accident: Irène Jacob

​We don’t see the actual accident impact, but this violent introduction to Rita immediately brings the dog-playing-the-dog to our conscious attention.  Rita lies prone in the roadway, apparently unable to get up and issuing (likely dubbed) squeals of pain.  When Valentine attempts to lift her she doesn’t do what a dog would naturally do and stand up, she whimpers and stays stiffly prone.  How did they do this, we think.  Is the dog very well trained and rehearsed for this scene?  Is she tranquillised?  How much time has Irène Jacob spent socialising with the dog to gain this level of trust?  Dog is simultaneously within and beyond the narrative.
 
Having managed to lift Rita into her car, Valentine discovers that her collar is marked with the dog’s name and Kern’s address.  Although a shot of the collar shows us the name “Rita”, Valentine also speaks it out loud, establishing a bond between her character, the dog, and the audience.  In fact not only is Kern’s name as the owner not on Rita’s collar, his name is only revealed when in later scenes it can be briefly glimpsed on a letterhead and it is heard called by an usher at the court he has to attend, not as a judge but as a miscreant.  In the script he is simply The Judge.

Jean-Louis Trintignant​

​THE JUDGE, THE DOCTOR

​Valentine drives to Kern’s house with the injured Rita and discovers that he seems wholly indifferent to the animal's fate.  When she challenges him as to whether he would be so unfeeling towards his daughter he simply replies that he hasn’t got a daughter – an apparently callous remark that we later understand is born from the pain of betrayal.
 
Upset by Kern’s unconcern for Rita and his evident misanthropy, Valentine takes Rita to a veterinarian (Marion Stalens), one of several briefly glimpsed but evidently sympathetic women in the film (although in the script* the vet is described as “he”).  Learning that Rita’s injuries are slight and incidentally that she is pregnant, Valentine takes her home, the dog’s front right leg in heavy bandaging.

Surprise diagnosis: Marion Stalens

We next see Valentine and Rita in daytime in Valentine’s flat. Rita is at rest on the bed while Valentine sits on the floor beside her.  In a two shot, their heads are level and given equivalent screen space as Valentine speaks by phone to her obsessively jealous but habitually absent boyfriend, Michel.  To tease Michel, Valentine pretends she has human company and holds the phone for him to hear Rita’s licking and panting.  (Why is the Dog who plays Rita panting while at rest? Has she been taught to pant on command? Is it the lights?)  Unamused, the controlling Michel tells Valentine, who is tenderly holding Rita’s paw, to get rid of the dog.  This, she does not do.

Long distance information: Irène Jacob

​HOME FROM HOME

​After an interval of some time, unspecified but evidently sufficient for Rita’s leg to fully recover, we see Rita apparently happily adopted into Valentine’s home life.  After some cash is delivered, which Valentine correctly guesses is sent by Kern to reimburse her for the veterinary fees, Valentine attempts an off-leash walk in the park.  There ensues the scene where Rita’s Ariel-like function to Kern’s gloomy Prospero is most explicit.
 
On being unleashed, Rita pauses and licks Valentine’s face before bolting at speed.  The lick is important – it is a signal that there is a bond between them and it is an invitation to follow, which Valentine of course does.  Rita bolts from the park and into the streets and Valentine’s concern turning to panic will be recognised by any dog walker.   After all, this dog has only just recovered from one road traffic accident.
 
After avoiding collision with a family on bicycles, Rita next runs into a church during mass and seemingly disappears.  Valentine follows her into the building and the priest and celebrants, apparently undisturbed by the dog’s incursion, are momentarily put out by the young woman’s.  While Valentine is apologising, Rita gives her the slip and vanishes.
 
Guessing that she has gone to her old home, Valentine drives to Kern’s house where she is indeed greeted in the driveway by Rita.  Kern emerges from the house and insists that Rita now belongs to Valentine.  Rita appears unable to decide between Valentine and her old master.
 
Kieslowski himself analyses this scene in detail (in a short film included in the Artificial Eye disc of Red) describing Rita as a magnet that draws Valentine to Kern.  The director seems to suggest that he would have liked to have Kern, Rita, and Valentine in the same wide shot in the driveway with Rita looking back and forth between the two people.  As it proved difficult to get the dog to do this, a compromise was achieved by cutting in close-ups of Rita turning her head (presumably instructed by her handler).  This actually foregrounds Rita as an agent with a dilemma, and is perhaps therefore more satisfactory for a dog-centred reading of the various relationships.
 
Valentine then explains that the cash Kern sent for the veterinary treatment was too much, hands him some banknotes, and asks him how he knew where to send the money.  He replies that this was easy, but does not explain.  This does seem to be a puzzle.  She didn’t tell him her name on her first visit and he didn’t see her car.  We can take this as a suggestion that Kern has powers beyond those of ordinary mortals, or we can simply follow the Dog and surmise that he has rung round the likely veterinary clinics for the information.

​SMALL CHANGE, BIG CHANGE

​Kern goes inside his house to get the right change but does not reappear, thus triggering Valentine to follow him inside.  She there discover that he spends his time spying by tapping his neighbours’ phones, and the remainder of the plot unfolds.  The scenes that follow between Valentine and Kern are the heart of the film, described by Geoff Andrew as “her innocence transformed by his wisdom, his humanity revived by her compassion.”

When Valentine goes home after her disturbing first-hand encounter with Kern’s spying and his dismal view of human nature she does not take Rita, despite Kern’s earlier insistence that Rita is now her dog. Nor, having now learned that Rita is pregnant, does Kern make any move to insist, suggesting perhaps his old indifference or perhaps the beginning of his revival.  In effect, Valentine has given Rita back to Kern, knowing that he needs the dog more than she does.  In the script Valentine, on getting home, dejectedly drops the red dog lead she has bought into the trash, but this does not appear in the film. 

Kern’s regained humanity at the end of the film is manifest in his affection for Valentine and her brother (who we only hear on the phone and see in a newspaper photo).  But also significant is Kern’s rediscovery of his delight in animals and his care for Rita.  The script has him watching Rita suckle her puppies “when something occurs to him quite unexpectedly” and he immediately starts to write the letters confessing his spying.  In the finished film, Rita does not appear to have had her puppies yet, but she is already ensconced in the den that Kern has provided for her.  Instead of watching her suckling the puppies as in the script, Kern and Rita in close-up exchange attentive, meaningful, glances.

In a later scene, Valentine takes her leave of Kern before the near-fatal ferry trip, and asks him if she can have one of Rita’s puppies when she returns.  The sudden and fulsome smile that Jean-Louis Trintignant produces in response to her wish is a high marker of Kern’s rehabilitation.  His very few previous smiles, as when he opens a bottle of pear brandy, have been little more than twitches, but this transformative smile resembles the sudden burst of sunlight that he has drawn to Valentine’s attention earlier in the film.

Puppy love: Jean-Louis Trintignant

​ANOTHER JUDGE, ANOTHER DOG

​The first words we hear in Red, apart from some generic phone babble over images of cable, are Auguste ordering his dog “Come here” as he prepares to leave his flat.
 
He exits his front door with his dog on a leash and starts to cross the road.  He then has to pull back rapidly, hauling the dog away, as a red car corners fast in their direction - thereby planting in our minds the possibility of a road accident involving a dog.  We will indeed witness such an accident shortly, though of course not with this dog.

Warning shots: Jean-Pierre Lorit with Auguste's dog, extra with a collie

​Auguste’s dog plays a smaller role and has less agency or influence than Rita, but from time to time he serves to highlight the deficiencies in Auguste’s character.  The script suggests a running theme that his dog is always ready and eager for a walk or a game but that Auguste usually has other priorities.  This theme is less overt but still discernible in the finished film.
 
There are two occasions in the script where August’s dog is described as being aware of and interested in Rita, but these do not appear in the film.  The first is during Rita’s bolt from the park and would have interrupted the editorial flow of Valentine’s quest to locate her dog.  The second is when August drops his lover Karin off at her flat at the same time that Valentine is visiting Kern in his nearby house.  This time August’s dog is indeed visible inside his red jeep, and in long shot we see Karin briefly lean in and stroke him, but there is no indication of any contact between the two dogs.  It appears that at some stage the explicit doubling of human and dog destinies was abandoned, perhaps as too obvious or too cutesy.
 
Auguste exhibits two instances of ill treatment of his dog.  After witnessing Karin in flagrante with her new lover he returns home and throws himself on his (single) bed in despair.  The ever bouncy and affectionate dog jumps up to comfort Auguste and he roughly lashes out and pushes him to the floor.  In the film this is a somewhat badly aimed gesture of anger, but the script specifies a hard deliberate thump on the snout.
 
Later we see Auguste halt his jeep on a lakeside freeway, take the dog out and tie it to a post, then drive rapidly away.  The script has him undergo a change of heart a few metres down the road, reverse his jeep, and retrieve the animal immediately.  In the finished film, though, we only infer that he has gone back to rescue the dog when we eventually see Auguste board the doomed ferry carrying him, and we are given no idea whether it took him minutes or hours to change his mind.

Unintended consequences: Jean-Pierre Lorit

At the conclusion of Red, the thing we know most certainly about Valentine’s future is that she will adopt one of Rita’s puppies when she returns to Geneva.  It seems unlikely that either the jealous absentee Michel or the self-absorbed Auguste would be patient house-training partners.
 
Sadly, when we finally see Kern watching the TV coverage of the sea rescue, it is evident that the miraculous selective survival of the stars of the Three Colours Trilogy does not include Auguste’s animal companion.  Well, there might be air pockets in the vessel that haven’t been investigated yet.

At the time of writing, the principal actors from Red are still here, Trintignant making films into his late eighties.  Kieslowski has gone and so, of course, has the dog who plays Rita and the dog who plays Auguste’s dog.
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But each dog is Dog…

​JUDGE NOT

Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman (2017) is story of prejudice and fear of difference.  Marina (Daniela Vega), a trans cabaret singer, is in a relationship with an older man, Orlando (Francisco Reyes) who dies suddenly.  Ruthlessly shut out from any involvement with the usual procedures and rituals surrounding shared grief by both Orlando’s bourgeois family and the agencies of the state, Marina finds some solace in the companionship of the couple’s Alsatian bitch, Diabla (She-devil).
 
Though they seem to have little interest in or affection for dogs, Orlando’s family remove Diabla, simply because they can and they want to exclude all traces of Orlando from Marina’s life.
 
After suffering a savage physical attack Marina resolves to regain autonomy, relinquishing Orlando’s flat and possessions but determined to get Diabla back.  By way of a parting shot, as Orlando's family are driving away from the crematorium Marina intercepts their car and, jumping onto the roof, inflicts substantial heel damage to the bodywork while her heartless tormentors squirm helplessly inside.
 
In the concluding scenes the dog and the singer are reunited in a new life.  In one eloquent scene, Marina and Diabla are lying silently together on a sofa as naked companions – species and gender irrelevant to their bond.
 
At the end of the film, Marina feeds Diabla before going out to debut as a classical singer, performing Handel’s exquisite aria Ombra mai fu while the camera tracks gently in from the back of the auditorium to a full close-up.

Bowl food, soul food: Daniela Vega, Diabla

Diabla does not act to drive the narrative in A Fantastic Woman as Rita does in Red, but her presence supplies a valuable living symbol of Orlando and Marina’s bond, the one thing that hostile forces are eventually powerless to remove.   Orlando appears several times in the film after his death, a ghost-like guide for Marina.   After her regeneration and the return of Diabla, he too can move on. The ghost's work is done, but Dog's continues.

©Ballooon mein Herr,  2018

REFERENCES
Andrew, Geoff. The Three Colours Trilogy. 1998.
Berger, John. Why Look at Animals. 1977.
Burt, Jonathan. Animals in Film. 2002.
Solnit, Rebecca. Motion Studies: Time, Space, & Eadweard Muybridge. 2003.
 
*References to the script of Red refer to the published English translation:
Kieslowski, Krzysztof & Piesiewicz, Krzysztof,  trans. Stok, Danusia. Three Colours Trilogy: Blue, White, Red. 1998.