Film Journal | Citizen Dog (2004)

Introduction & Plot Development

Citizen dog (2004) is a Thailand comedy, fantasy film. Its director and screenwriter is Wisit Sasanatieng. The main characters are Wisit Sasanatieng as Pod, Saengthong Gate-Uthong as Jin, and Sawatwong Palakawong Na Autthaya as Yhod (Citizen Dog 2006).

This movie is narrating the main character, Pod leaves his hometown to find some new opportunities in Bangkok. In Bangkok, Pod has changed his work a few times, namely factory worker, security, taxi driver, and resigning for Jin, the girl that he loves. However, Jin decides to separate from him since he does not have a dream and tail. Pod goes back to his hometown for a duration and decides to stay in Bangkok. In the fast-paced development, Pod becomes the only one who does not have a tail in Bangkok. Eventually, Jin realises what is love and fall in love with Pod.  

French Impressionism

Photoginie

Photoginie element is well-applied in the plastic bottle's mountain scene. Although this scene is generated by postproduction, it manages to create an evocative landscape for the movie. The mountain located in a fast-paced city becomes legendary, captivating many couples to have their dating on that mountain. Besides, the hometowns of Pond and Jin show an authentic village landscape that enables the evocative emotion to be displayed in this movie.


Fast Rhythmic Editing

Some scenes are using fast rhythmic editing to create the chaos illusion when there is something that happens on Pond. In this movie, Pond is an assembly-line worker, working in a canned sardine factory. He is in charge of the procedure of sardine's head excision. Due to the foreman of the factory speed up the assembly line, Pond accidentally cut off his finger and canned it in the sardine can. These scenes are using fast editing to tensed up the audiences. 


Fast cut scenes are applied when Pond is emotional. After Jin decided to separate from Pond, he feels desperately depressed and imagines all the strangers, even the portraits on the mural are having conversations with him. 


Colour Usage

The colour usage of this movie is using blue and red colours. This movie using many things that contain blue colour. For instance, the uniform for all the workers no matter their jobs are a factory worker, janitor or security. Other than this, the buildings' colour design is also using blue as the background such as Pond's house, Jin's house, the elevator's door, and the factory's assembly line. The red colour is applying to the factory's worker trousers, steel beams in the factory, the farmland in Pond's hometown, canned sardine, and the company's floor.


German Expressionism

German expressionism element is showing on the driver of a motorbike taxi, Kong. Although Kong has died and become a ghost due to a lot of dropping helmets on a rainy day, he is still working as a driver since he is too enthusiastic about his work. The makeup of Kong is pale and shadowy, enables the audiences to distinguish the appearance before and after Kong's death.
 

Surrealism

Surrealism art painting

In this movie, two scenes imitate the famous surrealism art painting or applying the theory of surrealism. The first scene is showing Kong killed by the dropping pink helmets and it is similar to Golconda, Rene Magritte's surrealism art painting (Golconda, 1953 by Rene Magritte). The repetition of the helmets in the sky is the main elements to create the similarity between Citizen Dog and Golconda. 


Apart from that, another scene is the gecko with Pond's grandmother face. This idea is similar to one of Rene Magritte's surrealism painting, Le Therapeute (Affatigato, 2018). Both of them are changed the body part to other particulars that are not related to human's body parts. 



Kammerspielfilm

This movie is mainly applying the kammerspiefilm throughout the plot developments. The main character, Pond and Jin both are the teenage that leaves their hometown and work as the blue-collar worker in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. The emotion of Pond is conveying straightly through his actions no matter he is glad, depresses or despair. In this movie, every character has their special characteristic and convey their emotion well through plot development and action. For example, Mam the irritable little girl with mature dress up actually is a lonely girl. Thongchai, the teddy bear becomes her only companion as no one cares about her in reality.


Conclusion

In a nutshell, Citizen Dog is a good film since it has utilised many artistic elements relating to French Impressionism, German Expressionism, Surrealism and Kammerspiefilm. Although these elements look so boring, the director manages to apply them with funny and interesting approaches.


References

Affatigato, C., (2018, June 28). René Magritte explained by René Magritte. Auralcrave. https://auralcrave.com/en/2018/07/05/rene-magritte-explained-by-rene-magritte/

Golconda, 1953 by Rene Magritte. https://www.renemagritte.org/golconda.jsp.

IMDb.com. (2006, March 9). Citizen Dog. IMDb. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0444778/.


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