Impressive young star gives riveting ‘Dogs’ its bite
The arrival of the evocative “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight” doesn’t just establish Embeth Davidtz as an exciting new filmmaker, it also marks the introduction of 7-year-old Lexi Venter, a talent so innately gifted she’s rightfully drawing comparisons to legendary child stars Jodie Foster and Anna Paquin.
Despite their 50-plus-year age difference, Davidtz and Venter seem to share one psyche, a symbiosis that thrives both in front of and behind the camera. Part of that is because Venter is playing a version of Davidtz as a precocious kid growing up in an African nation torn asunder by racism and colonial sovereignty. For Davidtz, it was South Africa. For Venter’s fierce tomboy, Bobo Fuller, it’s neighboring Rhodesia, where white rule is rapidly nearing an end with the 1980 election of Robert Mugabe as the first prime minister of what is now Zimbabwe.
Davidtz’s impressive writing-directing debut isn’t so much a political treatise as it is a nuanced examination of the human toll taken on both Blacks and whites at the end of the bloody 15-year-long Rhodesian Bush War. From any perspective, what transpired was tragic, but when seen through the eyes of 7-year-old Bobo, a girl with loyalties to both sides of the conflict, it’s especially devastating
Culled from the memoir of Alexandra Fuller, the real-life Bobo, Davidtz builds her film around Venter’s uncanny ability to effectively communicate the hurt and confusion felt by a child who loves her alcoholic mother, Nicola (Davidtz), less than her nurturing Black nanny, Sarah (Zikhona Bali), whose imparting of Manyika myth never fails to captivate the child. There’s much joy here, all of it generated by Venter’s all-in portrayal of an ungirly girl, with dirty hair, a smudged face, and a propensity for dropping the F-bomb, stealing smokes and posing highly inappropriate questions to dumbfounded adults.
Venter is a natural, imbuing Bobo with so much authenticity and natural charm you forget she’s acting. You adore her and fully understand why Sarah and the family’s less tolerant servant, Jacob (Fumani N Shilubana), cut Bobo a break when she unabashedly orders them about, an adverse trait she’s osmotically acquired from witnessing the appalling behavior exhibited by Mum and Dad (Rob van Vuuren), a member of the white peacekeeping force.
Davidtz’s screenplay vividly illustrates how easily children fall prey to such negative influences. We’re made privy to these and other insights through Venter’s pitch-perfect narration, which highlights how the thoughts and opinions of her mum, dad and teenage sister, Vanessa (Anina Hope Reed), often conflict with her perceptions of the world, be it through the lens of racism, inequality, or the ever-present fear of what she calls “tear-rusts.”
It’s a toss-up as to who frightens Bobo more, the rebel guerrillas known to have wiped out entire white families, or her alcoholic mother, who’s already suffered one nervous breakdown and is well on her way to another after losing Bobo’s little sister and now, possibly, her farm. She’s even taken to embracing a machine gun while asleep in preparation for a terrorist attack. To hear Bobo tell it, Mum’s bedroom is not to be breached at night for fear she might mistake you for a “tear-rust,” or during the day if Mum and Dad shut the door behind them. “Mum says they are resting,” Bobo informs us. “But I know what’s going on in there. They are laughing and moving furniture with their clothes off.”
Davidtz’s screenplay is filled with similar hilarious, childlike interpretations. And Bobo believes most of what her mother tells her, but not when she says she’d trade the family away for her horse and her dogs. Mother of the year, she’s not. And if this were now instead of 1980, she assuredly would be locked up for child neglect.
Davidtz relishes the role of playing the diva, and since she’s the director, she sets no limits on emoting. That’s especially evident on the evenings Nicola attempts to self-anesthetize with heavy doses of brandy while spinning Scottish bagpipe music and/or Tex Ritter’s “Bandit.” And if it’s the latter, expect Nicola to indulge in a seductive dance, perhaps capped off with a brief mooning.
Davidtz doesn’t shy away from indulging Nicola’s ugliest tendencies. But it’s her skill as a filmmaker that impresses most. Abetted by director of photography Willie Nel, Davidtz reveals a talent for composition, such as close-ups of Bobo’s white hands caressing Sarah’s Black cheeks, or Bobo gently scratching her name on Sarah’s leg with a shard of broken glass. My favorite shot is one of Bobo peering through a narrow slot into a pitch-black sweatbox outside the police station where Nicola occasionally works. At first, Bobo sees nothing. Then a haunted Black face emerges from the darkness, startling her and us. The image is powerful, personifying the cruelty that racist whites inflicted upon their Black brothers.
This is not the intruders’ land, Jacob repeatedly points out, noting that Nicola’s farm belonged to his ancestors before they were robbed of it by the white colonists. Now, these sacred lands are being reclaimed under Mugabe’s blessing. And Nicola knows it’s only a matter of time before her family will either be expelled or slaughtered.
Are these reparations just? Davidtz leaves that for you to decide. And that’s the allure of “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight.” Everything is there for you to deduce, including the film’s most poignant moment, when Bobo asks her mother, “Am I African?” To which Mum quickly replies, “No … It’s complicated.” But Bobo begs to differ. It’s the only home she’s ever known. Yet, she remains largely unaware of the sins visited upon these Africans by greedy white Europeans, comfortable plundering the natural resources, exploiting workers and incarcerating those who refuse to bow to their demands.
That Davidtz can construct something so beautiful from this sordidness is what renders “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight” so remarkable. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty close, and easily one of the year’s best pictures, featuring one of its best performances, not just by a child, but any actor, period.
Movie review
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Rated: R for violent/bloody images, language, some underage smoking, drinking, sexual assault
Cast: Lexi Venter, Embeth Davidtz, Zikhona Bali, Fumani N Shilubana, Rob van Vuuren and Anina Hope Reed
Director: Embeth Davidtz
Writer: Embeth Davidtz
Runtime: 98 minutes
Where: In theaters now and expanding July 18
Grade: A-
