Of course, in my first opportunity that wasn't the case, there's a nice big TV on the living room wall of the villa in the resort where we're staying, so that attracted my attention more.
And so I went scrolling in the Netflix account that was already logged on.
In one particular section of movies, I was laughing at how I had seen literally all of them. I kept scrolling to the right as my wife, who was not planning to watch the movie with me, and I both played a game of naming off the titles we had seen.
The first one I got to that I hadn't seen, but she had -- the only such movie on the whole list, in fact -- was the Australian film Red Dog, which is beloved enough that they made a sequel. I knew even before this that she was favorable on it, which had put it on my list, albeit distantly. But the next thing she said clinched it for me:
"And that's set in this part of the world."
I needed no further encouragement to click into it, especially for a milestone movie on holiday.
Indeed, I am in the northwest of Australia -- as opposed to the southeast, where I usually spend my time -- and indeed, Red Dog is set throughout this area, but primarily in a port mining town called Dampier. On the map it doesn't look all that far from my current location of Broome, but Google tells me it is more than 850 Ks, which will take you almost nine hours.
Movies about beloved dogs, perhaps especially those based on a true story, have a built-in eyeroll factor, if you are a cinephile -- probably even if you are a dog lover cinephile. They tend to be precious and the standard for the filmmaking is pretty low.
Red Dog gleefully upends most of those assumptions, especially in the filmmaking. The director with the highly suspicious name of Kriv Stenders has a real eye for putting together an image, as this is a truly crisp-looking picture with a lively sense of visual wit. (Cinematographer Geoffrey Hall has a long history in Australian projects, the only one of which that stood out for me was Chopper -- not a movie I remember having noteworthy visuals.) Even the tug-at-your-heartstrings dog stuff is, though, fairly muted by the standards of such a movie.
The movie looks at this shaggy community of miners in the 1970s, who have blown to Dampier from all corners of the globe and stayed where the work was. Other locals look down on them and doubt they have the capacity for the sort of kinship that forms between them, in large part due to a dog found in the middle of the highway by the two credited with starting the ramshackle community, one of whom is played by Australian character actor Noah Taylor. This serene canine seen in the poster above takes a shine to their group, available to anyone for a pat and a dose of being adjacent to the dog's intrinsic sageness, but allowing no one to call him his master. Until an American one day saves him from a game where the miners are betting on things like how quickly the dog will eat a bowl of food, before they can change up the stakes to eating a live chicken. Like I said, these guys are rough around the edges, but not incapable of a little personal growth when they're in the vicinity of Red.
Given that I knew this was a beloved Australian film, I was a little surprised that the lead is played by Josh Lucas. Most Australian films keep it local. Then again, this was based on real facts, and I imagine the real John Grant was American, so there you go.
Anyway, the story is basically a portrait of this community throughout the life of the dog and John, though spoiler alert, it was the 1970s so the dog is not still alive. However, I wouldn't consider this the sort of "tragic dog death movie" that triggers dog lovers, and potentially gets the eyes rolling among more cynical cinephiles.
In fact, for me it was just pure pleasure. It would have made a great 6,500th viewing even if it weren't set in the place I am currently spending my vacation.
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