My Life As A Dog DVD Review:


Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) is twelve years old. He lives with his brother and his dying mother. His life may be tough, but not as bad as Laika - the Russian dog sent into space, as he reflects. Ingemar is sent away to stay with relations for the summer to give his ailing Mother some rest. While there, he meets an assortment of eccentric characters and experiences new things that will stay with him for the rest of his life.

Didrik Gustavsson, (Arvidsson, a dying old man befriended by Ingemar), is one wacky character. He persuades the young Ingemar to read him saucy stories from women's underwear catalogues. The words " a deeply plunging back with inset" "bodice", "slips", "crotch", all probably mean very little to a young naïve lad but excite the old man.

Magnus Rask (Fransson) is off the wall. He is a crazy old man always fixing his roof, who very rarely utters a word. Berit, (Ing-Marie Carlsson), cast as a Barbie doll character, is sexy and sassy. She loves all the attention from men. There is a great scene of her posing as a nude model. Ingemar falls prey to the older woman's seductive charm. Spying on her in order to catch a glimpse of her naked body he stupidly falls through a glass roof. This follows Ingemar being prodded for information by his Uncle, who is seemingly besotted by Berit. The uncle gets Ingemar to describe what he saw of Berit's naked body.

Perhaps the oddest character is Saga, (Melinda Kinsman). At 12 years of age she is a curious handful. Befriending Ingemar, she involves him with football and boxing. She is a good mate with the lads. A tomboy, with her own struggles, hating her growing breasts, not knowing what to do with them. One particular scene with the two youngsters deals with their curiosity about each other's developing bodies.

The script has a lot going on with a variety of strong characters, although at times this becomes a distracting. The majority of movies have only a few strong characters. This film is very much an ensemble piece.

The directing jumps about from scene to scene and it doesn't flow, but to me came across as little more than a cluster of scenes, all jumbled up into one big movie. A bit confusing at times and a lot to take in. One minute the movie is in flashback mode, next flash forward, next present tense. This can work, but here is nothing other than confusing. The beginning scene is repeated again towards the end of the movie.

An interesting style of directing and not a style that I have been aware of before. I'd say that this movie could be labeled as a work of art, as an art house movie; a movie not of the norm, but ahead of its time! Ingemar, (Anton Glanzelius), born April 1974, has starred in a few TV productions such as Husbonden (1989); and Tryggare kan ingen vara (1984). Oddly enough for an extremely talented youngster he has done very little acting since My Life As A Dog. Totally taken aback by this, with someone as talented as him, I would have expected him to be a huge star of today.

Some of the scenes are controversial involving adolescent sex play and vulgar language translated from the Swedish by the English subtitles. Perhaps a bit taboo and straying along the same debatable path as the movie Birth with Nicole Kidman.

Overall the movie just isn't my cup of tea. I was interested in some of the oddball characters, however. They are interesting. Don't be put off though it may be your cup of tea and friends of mine who have watched it loved it! Time to go put the kettle on!



Jacqueline Sharp