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| Hint: it is not the animals the title is referring to. |
Dear Internet,
"Barking
Dogs Never Bite" is a dark comedy that examines the modern canine pet and
its role in relation to its owners. It
is also the directorial debut of Bong Joon-Ho.
Why do I mention that, Internet, especially considering that I usually
do not care much about directors as much as I do the work itself? Well, that is because Joon-Ho brought us "The
Host," a film that made record setting ticket sales for South Korea and is
one of the best modern monster films that I have seen. I could get into a long discussion about
"The Host" and about the various things that it got right, how well
it merges half a dozen film genres, and all the while remembers to entertain
its audience, but that would take up too much time instead of talking about
"Barking Dogs Never Bite."
"Barking
Dogs Never Bite" follows our protagonist, for lack of a better word, Yun-Ju. Yun-Ju is an unemployed college professor
that is tempted to bride a college dean to gain a position. At the same time, he receives no respect from
his pregnant wife and is reduced to a servant in most cases, doing whatever she
says with no backtalk allowed. To top it
off, he puts up with the incessant barking of a neighboring dog. At the first chance he is given, Yun-Ju
steals away a neighbor's pooch and leaves it trapped in the apartment complex's
basement. A day or two later, he learns
that the dog he took was not the one that was making the annoying barking. When he goes back to the basement to retrieve
the dog, he finds it missing but learns that the janitor had found it and is
adding it to the stew he is making.
Afterwards, Yun-Ju eventually finds the real yipping dog and the plot
takes off from there.
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| Yun-Ju laying down as his wife returns home from work. |
Then
again, that might be overstepping things a bit, not much mind you. The plot of this film is constantly swaying
back and forth between Yun-ju and a secondary main character, Hyeon-Nam. Hyeon-Nam is a somewhat listless and
unmotivated office worker that only gets involved in the story when a little
girl appears to have authorized a pile of missing dog flyers. She, Hyeon-Nam, then becomes an intrinsic
element to the plot and in some ways a foil to Yun-ju. The story bounces back from one to the other
throughout the film. It needs to do so
to tell the full story and how the actions of one affect the other. What I mean by over stepping is that the plot
never really takes off.
The whole
film moves rather slowly with many long moments between dialogues. This is of course intentional considering
that the point of such a slow movement is to emphasize the lazy kind of atmosphere
in both of the main character's lives.
It does a good job of showing that neither of the two characters are
happy with their surroundings and makes the audience sympathetic to their
situations. However, the danger of this
is of course that the film then becomes as slow and lackluster as the
situations that they are presenting. The
opening of the film almost entirely fell into this pit if it were not for the
somewhat graphic attempts by Yun-Ju to kill off the first dog.
The
film is definitely not for the kind of person that considers their pet dog to
be their "child" and call themselves a "pet parent." The film has a warning at the very start that
says no animals were harmed in the filming, so that should tip off the
viewer. Most films reserve that bit for
the ending credits in fine print. "Barking
Dogs Never Bite" makes sure that the viewer is put at ease concerning the
film's fictitious nature before even starting to tell its story. However, this does not make the contents of
the film any easier to sit through. Already
with my description of the plot, at least one dog gets killed off and eaten. The film rarely pulls punches except for when
the janitor makes mincemeat of the dog.
That portion is done off screen.
Otherwise, the film makes sure to try and make the viewer squirm. But none of that matters if the film is not
trying to make a valid point, which it does.
Yun-Ju tries two different ways to kill off the mistaken dog before succumbing
to guilt and choosing to passively leave the dog locked up. Each time he fails to kill the dog, the
viewer runs through the same emotions that he has concerning the attack on an
animal that is much weaker that he is and has not intentionally antagonized
him. There is also the fact that the dog
is very cute, and the film does indeed make use of this fact to pull on our
heartstrings, but that would be simplifying the situation. The point is not to completely vilify Yun-Ju,
but to show how desperate he has become from his situation. I am not condoning his action of trying to
get rid of the dog, and neither does the film considering that the film shows
much worse actions against canines than what Yun-Ju does. Yun-Ju only wants peace and quiet. The janitor is a much older man that comes
from a time when dogs were considered a delicacy or a substitute for other
meats, but at least he never goes out of his way to abduct a dog for the sole
reason to fill his belly.
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| You can add your own Michael Jackson joke here. |
"Barking
Dogs Never Bite" deals heavily with the concept of limbo. Nearly every character is stuck in one way or
another in their life to the point where had Yun-Ju not stolen the dog everyone
would still be in a miserable funk. That
single step, albeit a wrong step, sets in motion the whole story, and this is a
good thing. All it takes for the monotony
to change is a single step. If one never
makes any step in the slightest way different, then a rut is created. That rut only gets deeper and deeper with
every predictable step. However, the
film does not make the mistake of saying that any step outside the rut is a
good one. That would be like wishing for
someone to make up their mind and not be sitting on the fence rather than
making up their mind and coming to the right answer. Yun-Ju makes a bad decision in the beginning
of the film. Afterwards, he makes one
bad choice after another for most of the film.
Yet somehow, everyone seems to benefit in the end because of actions. The only one that it could be argued who fails
to benefit is Yun-Ju himself, considering that he changes one limbo for
another, but I am saying too much right now.
I do
want to say one thing before I finish up that I want to clear up considering
some of my gripes against the film. The
film is slow overall, but there are a number of faster paced scenes that dot
the narrative. They make for much more
exciding viewing sequences and are very enjoyable. They kept me on the edge of my seat, but I
have got a rather small chair, so take that with a grain of salt. The film thankfully only runs an hour forty,
but I found myself wanting it to end a little quicker by the last quarter. If you are planning to watch this film, be
prepared to slow yourself down for a while.
Otherwise you might get a little antsy waiting for the plot to rev up,
which will not happen.
Overall,
"Barking Dogs Never Bite" is a good film. It touches upon a number of topics of modern
life while at the same time masquerading itself as a black comedy (that is
black comedy as in the ED-209 scene in "Robocop" not black comedy as
in "Big Momma's House). Did I
mention that the film is funny? It has a
wide selection of jokes that mostly stem from the situations that the
characters are placed in. You will most
likely be very entertained by the comedy aspects, but you will just as likely
stay for what the film is really driving at.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
P.S. Tomorrow is "Stranger in a Strange Land" in
audio book version.
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