“You are on your own. Nothing happens to men like us because we live from day to day, ”says a Chechen immigrant to homeless Syrian children in Istanbul, in Wandering. Rootless, nomadic, hand-to-mouth existences are at the heart of the documentary by director / producer / editor / filmmaker Elizabeth Lo, but people are just peripheral players in this amazing non-fiction investigation, which really draws attention to countless countless canines roaming the streets of the city. A spiritual accompaniment for 2016 by Ceyda Torun The cat (which looked at the legions of cats that lived in the same metropolis), Lo’s film reveals the secret life of dogs. In doing so, she draws strong parallels between their world and ours and our common desires for maintenance, comfort and company.
Following a 20of century in which the authorities tried to exterminate the animals (leading to mass murder), large-scale protests turned the city into one of the few places on the planet where it is illegal to euthanize and hold captive any stray dog - which means that on almost every sidewalk, in every alley and near every dumpster, the canines gather, looking for food, fighting, boasting and trying to survive. Their room is a situation devoid of romance, though not without its pleasures, and Lo’s room assumes perspective over time, maintaining a low position to the ground as he watches these poichi back and forth on the lively sidewalks. , where people barely notice them, on the streets where cars stop to let them pass and on the beaches where they are free to run, play and roll and occasionally turn and scream at unknown intruders.
Wandering she focuses on a trio of dogs – starting with Zeytin, whose striking bronze color and large, sad eyes are as expressive as her movements through the various districts of Istanbul are casual. With a sometimes crooked expression on her face and a right ear that falls slightly lower than her left, Zeytin is a native of this cityscape, just as easily on its well-paved sidewalks, in its parks near busy roads and stretches. lofty with hilly land decorated with huge rock outcrops and ruins of buildings whose columns remain standing. Zeytin has a confidence that makes it a perfect guide for this environment, as well as making it popular among locals, many of whom know it by name. This includes a collection of young Syrian migrants living on the streets and, we learn from the kind of random fragments of conversation, they are known to sniff glue and are constantly threatened with arrest by the authorities.
Zeytin is soon associated Wandering with his friend Nazar and the black-and-white chick Kartal, the last of whom comes into the care of Syrian children after begging a local man for one of his many wanderings and he accepts by telling them that they can return at night and steal one for themselves. The similarities between the dogs in Istanbul and the refugee populations are not difficult to discern, and director Lo does not cursive and force such echoes, but allows them to materialize in the procedures in question. Through careful selection and juxtaposition of scenes, she analogizes the struggle of animals and children to survive, their territorial quarrels with others (be it with other dogs or tourists and police who would prefer to keep the streets free of homeless youth), and their desire to love – or at least a warm body to soothe at night under a blanket.
Lo shares his film with textual quotations about the nobility of dogs (especially from the Greek philosopher Diogenes, about 300 BC), but otherwise avoids obvious comments. Even the human voices in Wandering they are heard only in fragments and sometimes through a distorted sound meant to mimic how Zeytin, Nazar and Kartal might experience them. Those snippets of dialogue are sometimes comical (such as remarks about two dogs screwing up during a women’s rights march), sometimes political (like when men wonder if they vote for the Nationalist Movement Party), and sometimes as common as a truck. garbage operator who punishes Nazar for not sharing a fleshy bone found in the trash can with Zeytin. Such a comment is generally substantive, but nevertheless remains a key component of Lo’s observational examination of the concerns, cracks and oppressive treatment of Turkish society by those living on its edge.
Wandering it is most evocative when it simply trots beside or behind canine protagonists, capturing (and subtly mimicking) the influence of their bodies, the pace of their gait, the curiosity in their eyes, and the potential wickedness of their circumstances – a fact transmitted by a sterling sequence in which the camera Lo runs after Zeytin on a night street, almost losing sight of her, only to have the euphoria of the moment (amplified by Ali Helnwein’s string score) interrupted by a sudden explosion of dog-on-dog violence that was suppressed of Syrian children. At that moment, the film recognizes the thin division between happiness and brutality that defines the daily situations of these dogs, as well as the design of the sound (through the kindness Leviathan and Sweet grass„Ernst Karel) reproduces the whirling combination of noises – chirping birds, honking horns of cars, incarnate stammering – that swallows them as they meander from the dilapidated construction site to the descent of the store to the gray construction site.
INCORPORATION
Lo’s portrait of these capricious dogs is often melancholy, especially when it comes to Kartal, whose acclimatization to these hard-to-tread lands seems, through his eyes, to inspire a significant degree of horror. However, there are also moments of funny ease, such as when Zeytin comes across a cat hiding in a row of park bushes and, suddenly enlivened by this discovery, gives immediate follow-up. Wandering he does not distance himself from the good or the bad, documenting his subjects on all fours while jumping, hunchbacking, running, fighting, squeaking, growling, sleeping and seeking protection, food and rest. The more he follows them, the more they access the universality of their experience, all without losing sight of the uniqueness of their character and situation.
With perceptual neorealist grace, Wandering let the actions of his dogs in the face of abandonment, neglect and abuse speak of their resilience and goodwill, their ferocity and compassion. In this sense, the film says a lot about men and women willing to lend a helping hand to the less fortunate – and also about those who turn a blind eye to the creatures they need.