3. White God
Kornél Mundruczó’s tale of canine rebellion and revenge is remarkable for co-opting, essentially, a slavery exploitation narrative like “Django Unchained” and telling it all from a dog’s-eye point of view. It is uneven, in that it begins as an arthouse experiment, with allegorical and metaphorical heft, and devolves into a genre horror. But it is never less than focused and brilliant at putting us in the shoes of its protagonist, the betrayed, beaten, broken-down Hagen, who discovers resources within himself to lead his canine brothers to freedom, to exact vicious, bloody retribution on the men who mistreated him and to turn the tables on mankind in general. Featuring some truly surreal shotmaking, and a brisk pace that only lags when the film diverts to pay attention to the far less interesting people involved, it’s a singular directorial achievement for the Hungarian Mundruczó and for his main star, played alternately by brothers Luke and Body — Labrador, Shepherd and Shar Pei.