Of all the worries I have, perhaps the most pressing and distressing is the fate of my family dog, Pretzel. She is a Vizsla, a Hungarian breed you may recognize as the dog that holds the whiskey in Crown Royale advertisements. I like to think that when I drink whiskey, Pretzel approves. Her color is similar to that of the pretzel, the single greatest edible object under God. Pretz is getting old, and I often find myself sinking into mini-panics that she may pass while I’m away at school.
Last week, this irrational worry drove me home 450 miles to see the dog. Pretzel’s lifestyle was once like my own – reckless, fast-paced, fun. Now, wizened by old age, we both find ourselves waiting for women to cook us steak between naps. Still, time with “P-funk” is time well-spent. The closest approximation to Pretzel in Evanston is the new dogsploitation Disney movie, Eight Below.
The Antarctica-set flick is a fine tribute to her species, but also to a bygone era of filmmaking. One of the first scenes sees Antarctic tour guide Gerry (Paul Walker), his cartographer buddy Coop (Jason Biggs), and standard exotic hottie Kate (Moon Bloodgood, quite the name) playing poker. With a dog. And instead of smoking a cigarette, Coop chews on a stick of jerky like a Marlboro. It’s imminent Disney wholesomeness, but it’s also really freakin’ cute.
This is less a departure from the sick sentimentality of recent Disney fare (or from the cheap, ridiculous, CGI-based comedy, like Snow Dogs) than it is a return to form for the studio: mining their great history of nature-based films. Films such as Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar; The Incredible Journey; and Nikki, Wild Dog of the North – along with Disney’s noted “True-Life Adventures” series – were a staple of the company’s repertoire. Eight Below is more reminiscent of the surge in such films in the early ’90s; I remember White Fang, Homeward Bound, and some movie about a boy and a grizzly bear that, in retrospect, couldn’t have been very good.
Eight Below is about Gerry’s eight sled dogs’ fight for survival when they are prematurely abandoned by their human protectors at an Antarctica station. As Gerry finds it impossible to find anyone willing to go back to Antarctica to save the pups, we see short episodes documenting the dogs’ time on the ice. Though the film takes place in 1993 with Americans it claims to be “inspired by true events” – namely, a Japanese team in 1957 that had 16 dogs, 14 of whom died. Not surprisingly, the body count is lower here.
Walker does exert a bestial love for these dogs, but it’s not as preposterous as Naomi Watts’ gorilla fetish in King Kong – if anything, Eight Below does a fine job establishing the simple companionship humans share with animals. It’s to the film’s credit that it doesn’t think its audience (kid-heavy as it may be) dumb enough to require a throwaway line where some secondary character remarks to another, “Man, Gerry really loves those dogs.” Though in appealing to a kid audience, the film does become a didactic nature documentary during the trip – Gerry points out animals, explains how the dogs run and pokes at the ice with a stick. This all comes across as informative rather than insulting. Predictably, the film slips when dealing with the humans. I admire Walker because if I was an actor, I would be just as good as him. No better, no worse. This makes Walker’s visible on-screen struggles seem very real and honest. I like that about him.
This is all insignificant compared to Eight Below’s two trump cards: the inherent “How the fuck did they do that?” factor and the dogs. Not only does it boggle the mind how and where they shot this (it appears that Greenland and remote areas of Canada stand in for Antarctica), but how they got the dogs to cooperate. A natural point of comparison is March of the Penguins, itself a remarkable feat of filmmaking adventure that, in the badass category, outclasses Eight Below. Still, those Frenchmen just filmed penguins doing their thing. These dogs act!
The most moving moments of the dog scenes are when their behavior is most human. This is a predictable enough effect, but it’s difficult to understate the power of one dog pawing a fallen comrade. The dogs’ talent as actors is impressive, but symptomatic of the looming issue behind Eight Below and other Disney nature films: how we not only own and control dogs and other animals to do our bidding, we can train them to act more like us, like little, breathing puppets. It’s an alarming concept that either warms your heart or chills your bones.
Filmmaker as God or not, Eight Below is somewhat riveting, wholesome entertainment that reminded me why I love my dog. That’s good enough for me.
Communication senior Kyle Smith is the PLAY film columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
