In 1968 in Los Angeles, at a time when racial tensions were very high, writer Romain Gary and actress Jean Seberg, a spouse very involved in the cause of African-Americans, discovered that the stray dog they had taken in in fact was drawn up to specifically attack people of African descent.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
Updated at 1:16 p.m.
Let’s first answer a question many readers have asked us. Nope, white dog is not the remake of White Dog (Trained to kill), the film that Samuel Fuller directed in 1982. It is true that the director of The Big Red One was also inspired by the autobiographical story of Romain Gary at the time, but he had made it – with the help of his co-screenwriter Curtis Hanson – a purely fictional story from which the character of the author was even completely excluded.
Forty years later, the director of The Goddess of Fireflies, who signs the screenplay for his new feature film with Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne, does not offer a literal transposition of the book either, published in 1970, but his choices evoke more the reflection in which the famous writer gave himself up. His approach aims to be authentic to the point where the two protagonists of white dog are Romain Gary (Denis Ménochet) and Jean Seberg (Kacey Rohl) themselves.
At the heart of the story is a question that resonates even more strongly today. Like Gary, who wondered about how to fight racism and take a stand when you benefit from white privilege (he was already consul general of France in Los Angeles and Jean Seberg was one of the most more prominent), the filmmaker obviously asks herself the same question behind her camera. Throughout the screening, we also feel Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette playing cautious in this regard and watching all her blind spots. It could not be otherwise (Maryse Legagneur and Will Prosper were hired as consultants and were present at all stages), but this aspect inevitably means that the spectator looks white dog unlike a Spike Lee or Shaka King movie.
Set at a time when racial tensions are heightened in the aftermath of Martin Luther King’s death, the story is built around the fate reserved for the stray dog that Romain Gary and Jean Seberg have taken in, very affectionate, particularly with Diego, the son of the couple. It turns out, however, that this dog was trained to specifically attack blacks, as in the days when masters trained their dogs to chase their runaway slaves in the cotton fields. Hence this name: white dog.
From Black Power to Black Lives Matter
If Jean Seberg is concretely involved in militant circles to fight alongside African-Americans, at the risk of being reproached for this appropriation of a fight that is not his, Romain Gary wonders about the nature of racism through the behavior of this dog. Refusing to have it euthanized, he insists on trying to “deprogram” this racist animal, as a last hope for possible rehabilitation, a “remedy for hatred”.
Punctuating her story with numerous scenes from the archives, linking in particular the era of Black Power with that of Black Lives Matter, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette offers a film whose evocative power also includes beautiful poetic impulses. Characterized by another impeccable composition by Denis Ménochet, this drama with social and political overtones also benefits from the performance of KC Collins, excellent in the role of this African-American trainer who tries to rehabilitate the aggressor dog.
white dog is one of those works that mark the spirits. In this regard, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette has perfectly achieved the goal she had set herself. Her film is sure to spark some interesting discussions.
Drama
white dog
Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette
With Denis Menochet, Kacey Rohl, KC Collins
1:35 a.m.