Colloque de chiens
| Dog's Dialogue | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Raúl Ruiz |
| Produced by | Hubert Niogret |
| Written by | Raúl Ruiz Nicole Muchnik |
| Starring | Eva Simonet |
| Music by | Jorge Arriagada |
| Cinematography | Denis Lenoir |
| Edited by | Valeria Sarmiento |
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Release date
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Running time
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22 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
Dog's Dialogue (French: Colloque de chiens) is a 1977 French short crime film directed by Raúl Ruiz. The film contains popular conventions of the photo-roman but also can be viewed as a parody of the Brazilian telenovela or melodrama and pop culture stereotypes.
The story, told almost entirely in still images, revolves around a young girl who is told her mother is not her real mother. The girl leaves her small town, grows into a beautiful woman, and starts searching for love and fulfillment in undesirable places. The story is narrated off-screen, and the stills are intercut with video footage of a city landscape and dogs barking. The film deals with topics of gender, sexuality, murder, prostitution, and gender/identity alterations. The motifs of gender subversion, still images, and dispersed bodies are seen in this film along with many other of Ruiz's films. A main subject of this film is the relationship between stillness and movement and the repetitions of images, gestures and statements that are ironic yet believable.
The film stars Eva Simonet and Silke Humel and is narrated by Robert Darmel in the French version and Michael Graham in the English version.
Ruiz made the film while taking a hiatus from making Suspended Vocation while there was an actors' strike.
The film won a Cesear award even though it was not seen by a wide audience.
The film opens with a shot of an abandoned dog tied to a piece of broken furniture in a large open field. The dog is barked at and circled by another unleashed dog. The dogs continue to bark at each other while the unleashed dog runs in and out of frame while repeatedly approaching the leashed dog. The film transitions to still images and begins the narrative that is told entirely through the voice of a narrator (Robert Darmel). The narrative begins with little girls at a school playground. One young girl, Monique (Silke Humel), is told by another that the women she thinks is her mother is in fact not her mother. Monique goes home to Madame Duvivier who she thinks is her mother to discuss this new information. Madame Duvivier confirms that she is not Monique's mother and explains to Monique that her mother is Marie, a woman who comes by often to visit. Monique then goes to talk to Marie angrily, and discovers that Marie doesn't know who Monique's father is.
The film then transitions into Marie's adult life, which is ruled by sex and domination. She has been with many men, which was a trend that began when she became sexually intimate with one of her patients at a hospital.There is then a transition to Christmas Eve 1966. Monique goes out to a bar with her friend and is asked to dance by a rich man. After having some drinks, he drives her home. She sees this man for months because he financially supports her. Monique, haunted by her upbringing, eventually resorts to prostitution.
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