Striking modern viewers with a forceful impact, WHITE GOD is a film that dog lovers should fear: it presents a taut and realistic tale of canine oppression and brutality that builds to some satisfying moments, but nonetheless presents near-endless animal cruelty along the way. As a dog lover myself I found it a tough watch, the kind of film that wears its heart on its sleeve for the most part. This overlong Hungarian allegorical tale offers a cautionary fable about the necessity of treating animals well and the consequences that can occur when they're treated badly. The scenes featuring the little girl are repetitive and endless and unnecessary, but the scenes with the dogs are spot on, harking back to classic stories like THE PLAGUE DOGS and WHITE DOG. What's most remarkable is that they were shot via live action with some wonderfully convincing performances from the dogs themselves.

Sort of a modern spin on "The Birds", Kornél Mundruczó's "Fehér isten" ("White God" in English) brings up the issue of cruelty to animals. One might say that the dogs are more human than most of the human characters: these canines have pronounced ways of communicating with each other and picking up on danger, while most of the humans do horrendous things to them.

The song that the band plays is Franz Liszt's "Hungarian Rhapsody #2", which you may have heard in numerous Looney Tunes cartoons, and also in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (Daffy and Donald play it on the pianos and screw with each other's performances). Here it seems to represent the characters' attempt to celebrate everything that they consider Hungarian, even as their countrymen do the most heartless things to animals.

So, this is a fine piece of work from the Magyar Republic. I recommend it.

Yes folks, Don't confound this feature speaking about wild dogs with Sam Fuller's WHITE DOG and speaking about the nearly same scheme. Both are masterpieces anyway.