April292012
White Dog (1982 dir. Samuel Fuller) Despite its occasional melodrama, I think this film’s exploration of racism is too powerful to go unnoticed. A woman befriends a white dog, only to learn that it has been trained to attack black people on sight. The movie becomes a battle of wills between the dog and a determined black trainer. There is something so basic and compelling about this premise. To personify racism as a rabid beast gives us a visceral image of racism’s ugliness. It’s incredibly unsettling to see this dog, smeared with blood after just attacking someone, cuddling with its white owner. And the choice of dog was apt; he is beautiful and terrifying at the same time. He can change from puppy-like to wolf-like in a split second.  What I like the most about this film is that we’re forced to confront some hard questions about racism. Is it too engrained in the human condition to fully remove? 

White Dog (1982 dir. Samuel Fuller)

Despite its occasional melodrama, I think this film’s exploration of racism is too powerful to go unnoticed.

A woman befriends a white dog, only to learn that it has been trained to attack black people on sight. The movie becomes a battle of wills between the dog and a determined black trainer.

There is something so basic and compelling about this premise. To personify racism as a rabid beast gives us a visceral image of racism’s ugliness. It’s incredibly unsettling to see this dog, smeared with blood after just attacking someone, cuddling with its white owner. And the choice of dog was apt; he is beautiful and terrifying at the same time. He can change from puppy-like to wolf-like in a split second. 

What I like the most about this film is that we’re forced to confront some hard questions about racism. Is it too engrained in the human condition to fully remove? 

1982 black dog racism samuel fuller white white dog film 

February182012

a status on facebook asked: movie suggestions?

and it was then that I remembered Yi Yi (2000, dir. Edward Yang) all over again.


The weekend before Thanksgiving, I was bored, and, while surfing the net, noticed this film in the Criterion Collection. I strolled down to the school library to rent it. Its place among the esteemed collection, along with its Taiwanese setting, interested me. 

About an hour in, I discovered many more reasons beyond a setting to feel a deep connection to this film. Using three ubiquitous life events- a wedding, a birth, and a funeral- Yi Yi surveys the web of relationships in an ordinary middle-class Taiwanese family. In doing so, the film tenderly captures the small, ordinary moments and feelings that make up human life and its pathos. Like a candle, its effect is long, slow, and deeply reflective. I have never seen a film that made me empathize so strongly with its characters. I won’t see a movie like this one for a very long time.

Yi Yi edward Yang Taiwan film masterpiece life family love death 

Page 1 of 1