Stray Dogs (2014)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

see this movie if u have nothing to see, then u won't want to see any more art films.waste of time.2 hours, no dialogues, no script.pathetic movie.the good thing about the movie are it's cinematography and costume design.if it made as a short film it would be far better than this thing.

The modern film world is one filled with excess, and I'm not just talking about manufactured Hollywood block-busters. No there is even a large amount of excess in films that are more "artistic" if you will. And I want to be clear, that is not necessarily a bad thing, several films recent films have done wonders with just the concept of excess beyond reason, like The Wolf of Wall Street for example. But I do feel like something has been lost in the film world, a certain subtly that filled the films of Bergman and Ozu. A restraint that served to exemplify the characters and their struggles. Luckily there are some contemporary directors that are trying to continue this subtlety, and one of those directors is Ming-Liang Tsai.Stray Dogs is the most recent film by Ming-Liang Tsai, and well Stray Dogs doesn't have a plot, at least not the conventional sense. The film instead follows the lives of a few different characters, and tries to capture them as they are. The film brings the audience close to these characters and let's the audience understand them for what they are. To say that Stray Dogs takes its time is an understatement, every single scene in the film is slow and is stretched to the very limit of filmmaking. And believe me when I say that the scenes are at their limits. There are two scenes in the film that go on for so long that it exceeded not only anything else I had seen in any film, but they exceeded anything I thought possible. There is something very hypnotic about these scenes, Ming-Liang Tsai forces the audience to just stare at these characters for minutes on end as we soak in their facial expressions and slowly become one with them. It is something that is truly gorgeous and needs to be seen to be understood.If the actors in Stray Dogs were bad or even just average the film would be completely unwatchable, but luckily for us they are all fantastic. Especially Kang-sheng Lee, who plays the father of a small homeless family. (Kang-sheng Lee worked with Ming Liang-Tsai on several of his films.) He gives one of the most enduring and real performances I have ever seen. Another thing that's needs to be great for the film to work is the cinematography, which is also fantastic. The film is shot in a very matter-of-fact way, things are just shown as they are. The camera only a moves a handful amount of times in a film that's over two hours long. And the colors and lighting are just wonderful. Overall Stray Dogs is one of the most refreshing films I've seen in a long time, and if you think you can handle a really, really slow paced film, with a very unconventional narrative structure. I would highly recommend Stray Dogs.8.6

My first Tsai Ming Liang film was his fifty minute odyssey of a monk moving very slowly through Journey To The West. I unexpectedly loved it, so I was ready for any challenges he had for me in his second film of the year Stray Dogs. Yes, it has an abundance of slowly paced and ethereal shots, but here he had a loose narrative. It's all about the anguish of living on the fringe and the film perfectly evokes that emotion as characters silently battle the elements. There's not a shot quite like the scene where its lead sings tearfully while holding up a sign. However, the film lacks an essential economy to make it worth all its 138 minutes, even if it is beautifully shot for the most part. It needed more time in the editing room, and more time in the writers room at that. There's not enough layers to the characters and story to make it completely satisfying, besides potential political meanings that flew over my head. Its best when its eliciting a devastating trapped sensation with an eternal cycle offering no escape.7/10

This is a reflexive movie. Probably, it's not for everyone out there. It's one of the most slow paced movies I've ever seen. There are scenes that have a load of anguish and desperation that I never experienced in any other movie recently. This movie makes you stop for a moment and meditate about your very everyday life. The only "friendly" scene in the entire movie is when the kids start to pick up names for the piece of cabbage they have. There are scenes that seemed to take forever and you're invited to come along and enjoy the dark tranquility. Paradoxically, it causes you a feeling of discomfort because we don't really know if we are really relaxed with everything. Sometimes, silence and tranquility can be deceiving.This movie came to remind us about our loss of serenity in our very everyday lives. It tests you to the point of you feeling uncomfortable before the long, looong, loooooooooong takes. It's not only just a movie, it's a deep experience within our own selves, our sanity, our capacity of taking a seat, stop for a moment and look beyond the environment that surrounds us, for us to enjoy the little simpler things, to ignore the noise, the problems and everything, stop going so fast and face the view, the silence and face our own existence, our moments, to make our peace with our own time again.And I really hope that I can do this again at some moment in my life. Because life is going in such a hurry and such a speed that we kinda lost track of ourselves. So it was a worthy and rewarding experience. Once again, and this time at last, because it was the last movie, I thank the SESC's "37º Festival International de Cinema de São Paulo" event for an appropriate and decent closure and for another great film.