Documentary – “Dreaming Dogs” in the cinema: The suburban dogs of Moscow

Anyone who has always dreamed of running dogs in a pack, as if they were part of it, is right here. The homeless Nadja and the stray dog ​​Dingo live on the outskirts of Moscow and, as best they can, help themselves through everyday life that is difficult. Of course they are not alone, around them are other homeless and other dogs. Lauter uprooted, from every order that did not occur in the official self -image of Russian society – those that Dostojewski once “humiliated and insulted” at the center of his novel.

Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter entered this parallel world in “Dreaming Dogs” in such a discrete way that they themselves seem to be completely invisible. Who led the camera here? It is believed that it was one of the dogs. Using a special technical device, the camera is always at the head height of the dogs, is right in the middle of it, so that it is no longer perceived as a foreign body. And something stands out from the start: the dogs are watching people here, they are the actors of this film.

At night, when just a few street lamps burn, the dogs around Dingo, including the mobile camera, embark on dangerous night -time forays through the suburbs of Moscow. Always looking for something edible. It is a picture of Moscow today from the perspective of the underdogs. Fantal and ugly, because Nadja and Dingo Hausen in abandoned factory buildings that are becoming increasingly ruins.

Nadja is perhaps 70 years old, lives from collecting metal, wears rags and looks dirty. From time to time she finds an old newspaper and solves – a bottle of schnapps and a pencil stub at hand – crossword puzzles. Reads loudly: What is the name of the director of the Russian fairytale film “Fathers Frost”? She immediately has the answer: Alexander Rou. I am looking for on the Internet and am shaken: it’s true. Next question: summit in Greek mythology? Without thinking for a long time, she writes: Olymp.

In the past, she worked for a newspaper, she says, now begging to eat something. She suspects that she will soon die and talks urgently with dingo, who quickly has to become a real dog so that he could struggle alone, in the brutal struggle for survival of the Moscow, where you always get with all aggressiveness because of a bite.

It is a dreary moral image of the forgotten souls of Moscow, people and animals. There is no action in the conventional sense in “Dreaming Dogs”, you stray around from start to finish, some dogs and some people get out of view and do not come back into the picture. Do dogs actually dream differently than humans? Probably not, because longings and fears of humans and animals take possession alike.

The status quo of the stray around the old Nadja and Dingo, the still inexperienced dog, has something as tormented as it is outrageous. Because there is no change here, even improvement in sight. Only one thing is closer: the end. But nobody around her will notice it. Finally, the garbage disposal comes and continues the last remnants of these life. No winners, only losers without having and view.

With “Dreaming Dogs”, the Austrian directorial tuo Kremser & Peter connects to a documentary that was created in 2019, also through street dogs in Moscow: “Space Dogs”. This film also relied on a kind of internal dramaturgy: the group dynamics of underdogs par excellence. Here, too, solidarity and brutal exercise of power are always in dispute with each other. If you don’t have anything, you are not automatically a better person or dog. Hunger makes violent, and those who are weak eat in the pack – or not at all.

Nd.Diewoche – Our weekly newsletter

With our weekly newsletter . We’re Doing Look at the most important topics of the week and read them Highlights our Saturday edition on Friday. Get the free subscription here.

“Space Dogs” had – unclear whether this is a preference or not – a comprehensible topic, unlike the targetless strays in “Dreaming Dogs”. Who was Laika, the heroic bitch, who died as a Soviet space pioneer, who died a sacrificial death that is not chosen by herself? A Moscow street dog, as strong as it is persistent, undemanding as it is affectionate and, above all, lovable like every stray in search of a better life. Laika’s return to earth after fulfilled mission was never an issue, her death part of the mission.

The idea of ​​”Space Dogs” was that he had the spirit of Laika resurrected in today’s street dogs Moscow. This was forced to do something like a scientific test arrangement. “Dreaming Dogs”, on the other hand, manages without such a “plot”, lets the dogs run the way they want – the main thing is that the camera is up close.

So it is better to stay a dreaming dog instead of dying an ambitious but still miserable death for foreign research purposes? In any case, I would know what I would choose if I was a dog in a Moscow in front. Avoid the people to whom a dog life is not very important, apart from Nadja, the old scrap collector, with whom you can solve crossword puzzles! Otherwise, to the greatest possible distance, it is advisable to a world that has become insane from power hybris. Like this, it does not even give the end of underdogs.

“Dreaming Dogs”, Austria, Germany 2024. Director and book: Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter. 77 min.