Dieva suns
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DIRECTED BY: Lauris Abele, Raitis Abele
FEATURING: Voices of Armands Bergis, Agate Krista, Karelins Kristians, Madi Madara, Einars Repse, Jurgis Spulenieks, Regnars Vaivars
PLOT: A shamanistic traveler looms on the outskirts of town, while a local priest accuses a tavern owner of witchcraft.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Erotic parrot-mask dancing, cat-licking, distillate of priapism, a lascivious leech encounter, and parting Hell’s seas are among the weird things to devour in in this diabolical delicacy.
COMMENTS: Opening your movie with an aged warrior using a chain-loop to tear off Satan’s massive testicles as they rest below a massive upright phallus is a ballsy move. But by the close of Dog of God, it is clear that ballsy moves are just what this crew do. Brothers Lauris and Raitis Abele pull an ancient (?) trial from fastidiously transcribed historical documents and wrench it by the neck (and possibly elsewhere), squeezing it through a gritty, Bava-cum-Bakshi palette, setting the dirt and violence and hallucinations to a throbbing synth-metal soundtrack. Dog is not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach.
For your consideration: a guilt-ridden priest with masochistic tendencies; an female alchemist running a tavern; a crippled young monk pushed too far; an obese baron determined to sire an heir; and a tattooed dog man recently returned from the underworld with bad news. These characters, and others, are grimily brought to life through a somber palette daubed occasionally with the vibrant hues of blood, piss, and vomit. This is not a glamorous Middle Ages; this town seems to have almost nothing in it but drunkenness, poverty, guilt, and weeks of torrential rain.
The grimy atmosphere and morose characters could easily have acted as a drag, but elements enliven it. The film score is metal to the bone, with crashing blasts of evil notes underscoring the literal Hellscape as the story travels to the figurative Hell on Earth. A pungent darkness infects nearly all the characters, with perversions never far from the surface, and cruelty never far from action. The priest’s obsession with a pathetic relic (a piece of straw, somehow “holy”) seems both to awe and arouse the evil pastor. The rotoscope treatment adds a haunting element of the uncanny, as these grotesques flirt with human form and motion. And the stifling atmosphere leaves the viewer forever checked into a nasty state of anticipation until the violent, mind-popping climax.
In short, this was amazing. A blast; I laughed, I gasped, I winced, and, once or twice, just about reeled. The Abele brothers were inspired by all the right people; and as they related in the Q&A session after the screening, “Latvia is very dark and cold most of the year, so you’ve got nothing to do but use your imagination.” Drinking some probably wouldn’t hurt, nor would white-spotted toadstools. However they distilled their multivarious inputs, the important thing is Dog of God emerges from the fetid haze of history and hopelessness — landing on the eye of the viewer like a cackling splat from the backside of an ill-omened bird.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: