US actor Caleb Landry Jones is a hot contender for an award at the Venice Film Festival for his scintillating role in Luc Besson’s new film Dogman. In the drama, the 33-year-old plays a man who, rejected by his family, grows up with dogs and lives on the fringes of society.
The film, which moves somewhere between fairy tale, psychological drama and crime thriller, was enthusiastically received by audiences at the film festival. The German Clemens Schick can be seen in a supporting role and walked the red carpet with the film team for the premiere on Thursday evening.
Affection, madness and brutality
Jones – one of the few US actors to make it to Venice this year despite strikes – embodies this outsider named Doug with great urgency. Doug, who is in a wheelchair, lives a secluded life in an abandoned school with a large group of dogs. He loves dogs more than people. He earns his money by appearing as a chanson singer in a drag club. In between, he robs houses with his clever dogs, who listen to him perfectly. One day he lets a gangster intimidate her because he is threatening a friend. This has bad consequences.
Doug is a man who oscillates between affectionate affection, madness and brutality. Jones is a master of this palette. “No one is born a delinquent,” he says at one point. “One becomes it through circumstances.”
These are explained in a flashback. First, Doug is seen growing up as a child under a brutal father (iciously played by Schick) who earns his living by dog fighting. One day he locks his son in a dog kennel, where he will grow up from now on. Until one day he is freed by the police.
jubilation and criticism
Together with 22 other works, “Dogman” competes for the Golden Lion. For many in the audience, Besson’s film – which received an American Actors’ Union waiver allowing the film crew to promo – has been the highlight of the festival so far. Some critics also described it as grotesque.
Michael Mann’s highly anticipated but fairly conventional drama “Ferrari,” about the famous racing family, starring Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz, paled in comparison.
While most critics dismissed the opening film, Comandante (directed by Edoardo De Angelis) for its unwaveringly heroic portrayal of an Italian commander during World War II, Pablo Larraín’s black comedy El Conde received mixed reviews. The Netflix film stars the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a vampire.
Three American star dogs
When the “Dogman” film crew arrived at the Venice press conference, Jones was greeted with applause and cheers. The actor – who spoke with a Scottish accent at the conference in preparation for his next role – has previously appeared in the film ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’.
Besson (“Léon – The Professional”, “The Fifth Element”) gave an insight into the collaboration. When he finished the script, he would have worried about who could play that role. “And I feared I’d never find an actor crazy enough.” Eventually he met Jones. “And then I asked him, ‘Do you like animals?'”
Speaking of which, Jones isn’t the film’s only star. It took a few months for them to get the group of 65-70 dogs together, Besson said. “There are some things you teach them, but after a while you just have to follow them.”
There were three American star dogs who came with their own trainers and trailers. “The complication was that, as usual, the stars weren’t talking to each other,” joked Besson. A Doberman always separated and claimed a day of shooting for himself. He has a special role in the film.
