Hundstage

Rating:
Summary: Subtitled German Film-
Review: Like a Lucien Freud painting strutting across the celluloid canvas, viewers are injected into the naked reality of an odd assortment of characters. Man as bizarre zoological specimen is about as close as I can come to explaining the feeling that this film gave me. The plot is definitely non-linear. Each memember of the cast is more or less compartmentalized in their individual spheres of being. Very interesting fare and a much needed respite from the usual american schlock that we glut ourselves upon. Comparable to the film "Gummo", but with more depth of emotion. I would like to call it a freakshow with a heart although that seems to trivialize the realism that I felt was so adequately presented. Very much recommended.

Rating:
Summary: The ugly life of ugly people
Review: The director did not use actors but ordinary people for this picture. Most are revolting , all are ugly. Why should I look at people I come to despise? The people are Austrian, the language is Austrian-and not German-and reminds one of the Fuehrer they adored and cheered. After the war, they wanted to be the first victims of fascism.They deserve this movie we don't

Rating:
Summary: Strange Feeling left
Review: There was a strange feeling left when I left the cinema. Is it true that some people live in such a world? Somehow depressing, in a very strange way funny, too. "Dogdays" in Austrian language means something special: named after the star Sirius wich is the Dog-Star and wich appears in the beginning of August the "Dog`s Days" means a period of very good and hot wheater with no clouds - almost too hot. You feel like everybody else but the characters are on holidays. "Dog" is somehow the Mind-Level of all of those characters playing in the film. You can say what you want: this is a film you`ve never seen any alike before. And that's reason enough to watch it. To me at least. The film is somehow very slow and you have a distance to it by seeing those many difference characters as from inside themselves.
Somehow very special cinema and somehow very funny in strange depressing way. (...)A weekend, a heat-period: six stories, woven together, telling fragments of ordinary everydaylife. Evenings of songplay, sex and violence, days of lust and love, longing for love and not reaching it. A weekend full of the most normal catastrophees. Suburbian surroundings."