The year 2011 marks a watershed in the life of artist and musician Laurie Anderson. Her beloved dog Lolabelle, who had been at her side for many years, passed away. Not long after that she also lost her mother, to be followed less than two years later by Lou Reed, the front man of The Velvet Underground, with whom she’d been together for 21 years.
Anderson transformed the mourning process into a film. Like her multimedia performances, Heart of a Dog is a patchwork of disparate elements, interspersing animations and 8mm home movies with found footage. A constant is Anderson’s voice, which meanders past personal recollections and major topics such as love, life and death. Without sentimentality or woolliness, she relates rituals from The Tibetan Book of the Dead or Wittgenstein’s linguistic philosophy to autobiographical stories and observations on the controlled society that has developed since 9/11. A kaleidoscopic film essay, held together by Anderson’s violin compositions and soundscapes.
Film details
- Country of production
- USA
- Year
- 2015
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2016
- Length
- 75"
- Medium/Format
- DCP
You may also like this
-
Yi-Ren (The Person of Whom I Think)
A love letter in collage style, consisting of found footage and a strange reading of Kang-Chien Chui’s work, karaoke and diary videos.
-
11 Minutes
Exciting mosaic drama centred on a budding actress, an American filmmaker, a jealous husband and a motorbike courier. About the chaos that rules li
-
Free in Deed
In the often ethnically coloured American storefront churches, the faithful piously pray for miracles. So does a single mother, who hopes a ministe