SEEKING REFUGE // A FILM REVIEW OF "STRAY"
When's the last time you've watched story of an animal and thought it was just as compelling as any film featuring your favorite actors and actresses leading you down a journey? Perhaps something animated? Well, if you don't think you've seen a live action film where humans are truly only secondary characters, I've got a great recommendation for you. Elizabeth Lo's STRAY is a fascinating and beautiful film, a documentary that takes us truly into a dog's point of view. Specifically, the dogs who make up the streets of Istanbul, where stray dogs roam the streets just as humans do. In the last 90's and early 2000's, there were mass exterminations of stray dogs, poisoned on the streets. Animal rights groups fought back and it is now illegal in the country to kill or hold a dog captive. The communities have embraced them, and now they live alongside the citizens of the communities, going wherever they wish.
Children play with them, adults help feed them and life like this is simply seen as the day-to-day normal, with the dogs often tagged, spayed and neutered. Lo (who's credited as the writer, producer, cinematographer and director) follows them around, capturing amazing and intimate footage of both a dog's life and their simple but beautiful life within Istanbul. The dog we see the most of is Zeytin and Lo travels alongside her as if she's her lead actress. The city inhabitants often know the beautiful dog and we are able to see some wonderful moments of Zeytin interacting with them as she goes about her day. There's a few scary situations, such as an intense run-in with another street dog but mostly it's a beautiful life for Zeytin and the other strays that live within its walls. Along with Zeytin we also get to know Nazar and Kartal, a more timid puppy.
Lo doesn't tell too much of the human side of the story but we do meet three homeless Syrian refugee boys in a heartbreaking way. These boys go from place to place, trying to find a place to sleep and eat day after day. They don't have a family here, but seem to find one alongside the loving dogs who they absolutely adore. They even want one of their own, hoping to have a new partner in their lives. We see here how loving and perfectly at home these dogs feel, walking the streets as if they owned them. They are their neighbors. When's the last time you remember reaching out to a stray dog, not afraid of it and it not afraid of you? These wonderful dogs are welcomed in such a profoundly simple way, yet these three Syrian refugees aren't given the same treatment.
They have also become strays here, but without anyone reaching out to help or feed them. It's moment like this that sneak up on you and hit you with an invisible gut punch, realizing that only one stray is visible to most. The others are often invisible or immediately looked down upon. We are even told, at one point, the boys are even arrested for sleeping on the streets. It's not a question of why the stray dogs have it so good here; it's a wonderful site to see. It's a question of why does the compassion end there and not continue for our own human neighbors? Why is that a more complicated matter? Lo doesn't offer answers but she does make us think and gives us a dizzying view of what the world looks like from just a few short feet below our eye level.
GRADE: B+
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Elizabeth Lo NOW PLAYING IN VIRTUAL CINEMAS. FOR MORE INFO: https://www.straymovie.com/