White God
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''White God'' ( hu, Fehér isten) is a 2014 Hungarian
drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...
directed by
Kornél Mundruczó Kornél Mundruczó (; born 3 April 1975) is a Hungarian film and theatre director. He has directed 18 short and feature films between 1998 and 2020. His film ''Johanna'' was screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2005 Cannes Film Fest ...
and starring Zsófia Psotta. The film premiered on 17 May 2014, as part of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.


Plot

The film follows the mixed-breed dog Hagen, who befriends 13-year old Lili and comforts her in her confusion when her mother leaves her with her strict father who has not seen her for years. Because Hagen is a mixed-breed, he is subject to a large "
mongrel A mongrel, mutt or mixed-breed dog is a dog that does not belong to one officially recognized breed and including those that are the result of intentional breeding. Although the term ''mixed-breed dog'' is sometimes preferred, many mongre ...
" fee imposed by the Hungarian government, which Lili's father is unwilling to pay, offering instead to buy Lili a purebred dog if only she will get rid of Hagen. Lili is angry that her father thinks Hagen can be so easily replaced, and the incident underscores the lack of understanding between father and daughter. Fearful that her father will get rid of Hagen while she is away, Lili takes the dog to her music class, where his appearance causes chaos. The teacher threatens to kick Lili out of music class unless she takes the dog outside and remains in the class. Instead, Lili strikes out with Hagen into the city, but they are found by her father, who left work to look for them after the music teacher phoned him. Lili's father is embarrassed by the incident, and in his anger, he drives Hagen to the outskirts of the city and abandons him on the side of the road. Hagen chases after their car but is unable to follow them. Hagen begins a lonely journey wandering the city. He eventually befriends a white dog after it saves him from an angry butcher. After spending the night with other street dogs, a dog catcher pursues Hagen and the other street dogs. After a long chase, Hagen avoids the dog catchers with the help of a homeless man. However, the man sells Hagen to a
dog fighting Dog fighting is a type of blood sport that turns game and fighting dogs against each other in a physical fight, generally to the death, for the purposes of gambling or entertainment to the spectators. In rural areas, fights are often staged in ...
ring, where he is chained, starved, and trained to kill. In his first fight, he kills his opponent and escapes. He is caught by animal control officers and brought to the city dog pound. Meanwhile Lili, still angry with her father and upset by the loss of Hagen, goes to a party where she drinks alcohol. The party is raided by the police, and Lili is taken to the station and her father called. Arriving to pick her up, her father breaks into tears and admits that he was wrong to get rid of Hagen and that while he does not understand the now-teenage Lili, he still loves her. The two reconcile and her father, in a gesture of getting reacquainted with his daughter, promises to attend her upcoming concert. On the other side of the city, Hagen escapes from the pound after killing one of the staff. He breaks open the cages and frees the other dogs, who follow him into the city. With Hagen as their leader, the dogs start an uprising against their human oppressors, wreaking mayhem as Hagen locates and kills all the people who harmed him. The pack reaches the concert hall where Lili is playing, and the concert-goers barricade themselves within for safety. Spotting Hagen, Lili sneaks out of the concert hall and follows the dog pack on her bicycle. Followed by his army, Hagen goes to the slaughterhouse where Lili's father works, where they appear on the verge of taking revenge on him when Lili arrives. At first, Hagen growls at Lili and has his army behind and around him. Her father rushes from the building armed with a blowtorch to defend his daughter, but instead, Lili plays Franz Liszt's " Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" on her trumpet. Hagen seems to forgive her and lies down to listen. All the other dogs lie down in a gesture of reconciliation as Lili sits in their midst and continues to play. She then lies down facing Hagen. Her father, stunned at the scene, puts down his weapon and goes to lie down beside his daughter.


Cast

* Zsófia Psotta as Lili * Sándor Zsótér as Dániel * Lili Horváth as Elza * Szabolcs Thuróczy as Old man * Lili Monori as Bev *
László Gálffi László Gálffi (born 16 November 1952) is a Hungarian actor. He was born in Budapest. One of his better known roles is that of King Ludwig II of Bavaria in Tony Palmer's epic film production of ''Wagner'', in which Galffi acted alongside Ric ...
as Music teacher * Gergely Bánki as Dog-catcher * Tamás Polgár as Dog-catcher * Bodie and Luke as Hagen the dog


Animal welfare during filming

Approximately 250 dogs were used in the film. With the exception of Bodie and Luke (the pair of brother dogs that portray Hagen), all the animal extras were dogs recruited from shelters or from the streets of the shooting location and trained with an eye toward their humane treatment and ultimate rehabilitation by Teresa Anne Miller, daughter of Hollywood animal trainer Karl Lee Miller whose work with animals includes films such as ''
Babe Babe or babes may refer to: * Babe, a term of endearment * A newborn baby * An attractive (especially female) person People Nickname * Babe Adams (1882–1968), American Major League Baseball pitcher * Babe Barna (1917–1972), American Maj ...
'' and ''
Cujo ''Cujo'' () is a 1981 psychological horror novel by American writer Stephen King about a rabid Saint Bernard. The novel won the British Fantasy Award in 1982 and was made into a film in 1983. Background Cujo's name was based on the alias of ...
''. Approximately 98% of the dogs were adopted after filming. Representatives for
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA; , stylized as PeTA) is an American animal rights nonprofit organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. PETA reports that PETA entities hav ...
were invited to make a statement on the animals' treatment during filming, but declined, stating that "We appreciated that they seemed to take some extra steps along the way so the dogs were comfortable and not hurt... but we cannot endorse a film without having visited the set."


Reception


Critical reception

On
review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film holds an approval rating of 88% based on 101 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "''White God'' isn't an easy watch, but its soaring ambition and powerful acting — human and canine alike — make it well worth the effort." On
Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film has a score of 80 out of 100 from 29 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


Awards and nominations

''White God'' won the Prize Un Certain Regard at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and the Octopus d'Or at the
Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival The Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival (SEFFF) (French: ''Festival Européen du Film Fantastique de Strasbourg ''(''FEFFS'')), is an annual film festival held in Strasbourg, France, that focus on fantasy, science fiction and horror f ...
for the Best International Feature Film. The dogs in the film were also awarded with the Palm Dog Award. The film was selected as the Hungarian entry for the
Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
at the
87th Academy Awards The 87th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2014 and took place on February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30  ...
, but it was not nominated.


See also

*
List of submissions to the 87th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of submissions to the 87th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has invited the film industries of a number of countries to submit their best film for the Academy A ...
*
List of Hungarian submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Hungary has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film every year since 1965. Only France has a longer unbroken streak entering the Foreign Oscar competition. The Best Foreign Language Film Award is handed out annually ...


References


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:White God 2014 films 2014 drama films 2010s Hungarian-language films Hungarian drama films German drama films Swedish drama films Films about dogs Films about animal rights Films directed by Kornél Mundruczó Films set in Budapest Films shot in Hungary 2010s English-language films 2014 multilingual films Hungarian multilingual films German multilingual films Swedish multilingual films 2010s German films 2010s Swedish films