Butler's Cinema Scene

“HEART OF A DOG” My rating: B

75 minutes | No MPAA rating

Except in the form of an animated avatar, we never  see Laurie Anderson as she delivers the film-as-performance piece that is “Heart of a Dog.”

But this could be the work of no other artist. Anderson’s voice — soothing, calming, seemingly unemotional yet often tinged with deadpan irony — is instantly recognizable to her fans.

And through the visual collages she has created for this film, Anderson offers a total sensory experience, a melding of sight and sound that is hypnotic, captivating, and strangely moving.

The topic of “Dog…” is a biggie:  death.  Curiously,  Anderson doesn’t talk about the passing a year ago of her husband, rock icon Lou Reed (although one of his recordings is featured under the closing credits). Perhaps that’s for the best…the loss of Reed still may be too painful.

Rather, Anderson explores her heavy-duty topic mostly through her experiences with Lolabelle, the pet rat terrier that also died not long ago.

The film consists of brief essays, stories, anecdotes, musings.  For instance, there’s a yarn about how Lolabelle got a whiff of her own mortality when, on a walk along the Pacific coast, a couple of condors targeted her for dinner.

Laurie Anderson and friend

There are digressions.  Anderson recalls how as a child she broke her back in a fall from a diving board and spent a year in a cast. She remembers an artist friend  who died young and whose ghostly visage appeared to her on the porch of the commune where they lived. And the long slow death of her own mother.

Anderson is a master wordsmith, but the look of “Heart of a Dog” is stunning as well.

It’s a kaleidoscope of images — recreations of memories (a dog named Archie plays Lolabelle), photographs, Anderson’s drawings, surveillance video, home movies.

The masterful and inventive editing is by Melody London and Katherine Nolfi, while Marc Boutges offers some stunning  visual effects. For example,  scenes often play out behind what appears to be a rain-spattered car windshield — the rivulets that run down the screen might be tears of loss.

That sense of melancholy is emphasized by a score featuring the non-melodic musings of the Kronos Quartet.

Ultimately, Anderson quietly concludes, we must learn to love with tenderness, for we rarely understand what we have until it’s gone.

Amen.

| Robert W. Butler