dog power
Director: Jane Campion
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Cody Smit-McPhee
New Zealand director Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog comes more than a decade after making Bright Star on the past three years of the life of poet John Keats and his romance with Fanny Brown. It had a good cast of Ben Wishaw and Abby Cornish. The director’s latest, The Power of the Dog, which just opened on Netflix, is a diversion from most of his works in which the protagonist is always a woman. I remember her 1993 Cannes competition title, The Piano, a period piece with Holly Hunter (essay on a “silent” woman), Harvey Keitel and Anna Paquin. It won the top Palme d’Or at Cannes, and received an Oscar for Best Actress for Paquin (who was only 11 at the time) and a Best Supporting trophy for Hunter.
It’s possible that The Power of the Dog will garner some Oscars early next year, though it’s certainly not in the same league as Piano, which was far more entertaining than emotional and passionate. Campion’s current work, which she adapted from Thomas Savage’s novel of the same title, is as disturbing a mix of jealousy, rivalry and hatred as it is about love and affection. Phil and George are brothers who, despite their chalk-and-cheese differences in character, are inseparable like Siamese twins. They even share a bed, which makes us wonder if they have homosexual tendencies. Having inherited a large farm in Montana where they train livestock and horses, they have created a clean pattern for coexistence in their mahogany paneled palatial home.
It’s 1925, and Campion presents a thrilling cowboy tale, though without guns, bullets, and fighting. The confrontations are internalized with Phil—played brilliantly by Benedict Cumberbatch, the protagonist here in a deviation from Campion’s female protagonists—annoyed by the third and fourth man infiltrating the brothers’ domestic system. George brings home his wife, Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and their son, Peter (Cody Smit-McPhee).
Rugged and cranky, Phil believes the world is for the fittest—not for Rose, who engulfs her in a mood of sadness and addiction. Peter is a sissy, a mother’s pet, training to be a surgeon, who makes exquisite paper flowers in his spare time. When he puts them on the dinner table, he is immediately branded Miss Nancy. Phil never misses an opportunity to taunt Rose or her son. While she is rehearsing on her piano for a reception that her husband wants to hold for the governor, Phil plays the same tune on his banjo, berating and humiliating her.
Interestingly, outwardly both Phil and Peter are different, but they have a strong, almost vile, streak going on. We see this early on when Phil bites a bull with his bare hands, and much later we see Peter biting his pet rabbit – which he explains as he is experimenting with for his course in surgery. Is.
George is the weakest link here; Always well dressed, he is a perfect gentleman but is absent from the screen for long periods of time, and there is little that tells us about him. Portrayed by Jesse Plemons, he keeps to himself and awkwardly doesn’t interfere when Phil continues to taunt Rose, also known as a schemer for George, to pay for his son’s college fees.
Shot in some of the wooded parts of New Zealand (which are passed off as Montana), Campion captures the beauty of the rugged hills and undulating valleys. Like the ups and downs of the landscape, we see parallels in the relationship between Phil and Peter. He takes the boy under himself and trains him in the art of shepherding, horse riding and toughening. Phil himself was coached by Bronco Henry, who had been a cowboy from his youth.
The Power of the Dog, despite its dull gray color, has interesting moments. See how Campion has framed a shot of a series of windows, and we see a horseman walking around outside each – appearing and reappearing. Like in this faded-in and faded-out shot, the drama here is exposed or hidden in dark motives, suppressed anger and repressed sexuality. It is a devastatingly brutal look at a life lived in a gloomy abyss of turbulent emotions.
But I wish Dunst had got a better written part. If you remember, she was brilliant in Lars von Trier’s Melancholy – a film that got Helmer in trouble at Cannes, where he jokingly hinted that he was a fan of Hitler. I remember Dunst’s intense discomfort and embarrassment at that press conference, where the Danish writer outraged half the world. Dunst went with Best Actress Pam, although there are reports that the jury also wanted the work to be awarded Best Picture.
(Gautam Bhaskaran is a writer, commentator and film critic who has covered several film festivals including Cannes, Venice and Tokyo for over three decades)
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