Something to watch tonight: Thursday 12 June

Heart of a Dog (Anderson, 2015)

Recently landed on AroVision in Aotearoa, Heart of a Dog is a great com­pan­ion piece to Bryce Dallas Howard’s Pets which we recom­men­ded here a few days ago.

It played in the 2016 New Zealand International Film Festival and I reviewed it in one of my diary pieces for RNZ:

Performance artist and com­poser Laurie Anderson’s first fea­ture film Heart of a Dog was sur­pris­ingly mov­ing – emo­tion­ally as well as intel­lec­tu­ally pro­voc­at­ive. An exten­ded essay on loss and grief, it blends auto­bi­o­graphy, unex­pec­ted spir­itu­al­ity, civic polit­ics and art in a pack­age that landed heav­ily on me throughout.

As someone who has always been in com­plete deni­al about my own mor­tal­ity, Anderson’s stor­ies of the anim­als and people she has lost and how their deaths were, was pro­found. If I’m ever ready to let that top­ic into the intim­ate and per­son­al sec­tions of my brain, Heart of a Dog will be a text that I will come to rely on, I’m sure.

Most audi­ences will be aware going in that Anderson’s life part­ner Lou Reed passed away in 2013 and his absence casts a shad­ow (if that’s even pos­sible) over the film, only becom­ing palp­able near the end. There’s a fleet­ing glimpse of the couple on a beach – not two New York rock legends, just old people sit­ting on the sand together.

Also reviewed in that NZIFF diary: The First Monday in May, the doc­u­ment­ary about the annu­al Met Gala; Park-chan Wook’s erot­ic mas­ter­piece, The Handmaiden; Kore-eda’s less-than-erotic mas­ter­piece, After the Storm; Errol Wright and Abi King-Jones’ The 5^th Eye – I really should do a show­case of their Vanguard doc­u­ment­ar­ies one day; the res­tor­a­tion of King Hu’s mar­tial arts clas­sic A Touch of Zen; Werner Herzog’s invest­ig­a­tion of the online, Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World; and Molly Reynolds’ illu­min­at­ing por­trait of life for young Aboriginal people in a the remote Northern Territory set­tle­ment of Ramingining, Another Country.

Back in those days, NZIFF used to shout me in to any day­time ses­sion I wanted and they got half a dozen RNZ diary art­icles in exchange. Now neither organ­isa­tion seems to be very inter­ested which is disappointing.

Where to watch Heart of a Dog

Aotearoa: Digital rent­al from AroVision or stream­ing on DocPlay

Australia: Streaming on DocPlay

Canada: Digital rental

Ireland & UK: Digital rental

India: Not cur­rently available

USA: Streaming on Criterion Channel