Synopsis
Laika, a stray dog, was the first living being to be sent into space and thus to a certain death. A legend says that she returned to Earth as a ghost and still roams the streets of Moscow alongside her free-drifting descendants.
A word from Tënk
What does Laika's 1957 trip into space tell us about ourselves as a species? What do the tribulations of stray dogs in the streets of Moscow tell us? What is this curious film trying to tell us?
In an interview, the two filmmakers of this absolutely unusual and destabilizing work tell us that their initial idea was to follow a pack of stray dogs in an attempt to create a cinematographic experience that would challenge anthropocentrism. After several technical experiments, the duo cobbled together a device involving a lightweight camera operated with a single handle, allowing the cinematographer to shoot at dog height. This direct cinema dive into the canine universe is an unbalancing experience on all levels: it imposes an unusual narrative based on the rhythm of the animals, it disconcerts and challenges our moral preconceptions and it reveals blind spots created by our anthropomorphic perspective. We discover a disconcerting and disturbing world, where our usual analysis schemes are not very useful to navigate.
The addition of a metaphorical layer based on the legend of Laika's ghost returning to haunt the living and the introduction of amazing archival material found by the filmmakers at the Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow and difficult to obtain, further complicates this trying work. Humanity appears to be undermined in its will to omnipotence and its blinding anthropocentrism. Laika's journey, which seemed to be the pinnacle of progress at the time, appears in this light as an exercise that is both cruel and childish.
Narrated by a deep and reassuring voice, the whole thing looks like a tale for children under the influence; the story of sadistic mad scientists who would like to answer the ogresque desires of a megalomaniac enlightened man. The most worrying thing in all of this is that the enlightened one is nowhere to be found; he lives in each of us, turning the human race into a monster destroying everything, blinded by his feeling of superiority and his will to power.
Naomie Décarie-Daigneault
Tënk's Artistic Director
