Quill

A huge hit in Japan and winner of several ‘Best Director’ prizes, this is a biopic about a guide dog for the blind. Quill, named for a distinctive black mark on one flank, is a Labrador retriever who distinguishes himself as a puppy by not sharing the impulsive excitement of his siblings. Selected and trained as a ‘seeing-eye’ dog, he is eventually assigned to Watanabe Mitsuru (Kobayashi Kaoru), an embittered, querulous man who constantly tries the patience of his family and who initially refuses to believe that a dog can replace the stick he has used since he lost his sight. The man-dog relationship endures, however, until Watanabe is hospitalised with cancer. Sai falls into none of the obvious traps in this subject: there’s no false sentiment, no indulgence of cuteness, just a clear-sighted exposition of a process which many (both children and adults) will find extraordinarily moving.