My Life as a Dog

Filipe Manuel Neto

2023-07-10

⭐ 7

**An exceptionally well-made film about an ordinary boy experiencing things common to almost all boys his age.** I don't have much experience with Swedish cinema, but what I saw already showed me that it is quality cinema, so it was with some curiosity that I sat down for another film. It centers on a boy, Ingemar, who lives with his brother and mother, who is very sick and unable to control their restlessness. When she dies, the two brothers are separated and Ingemar goes to live with his uncles, who have no children but seem genuinely interested in providing him with a good education. So,…

The film's title translates a Swedish idiom for rotten luck. That tells you everything about how 12-year-old Ingemar processes the world. He doesn't get angry. He doesn't break down. He finds worse situations and measures himself against them. The dog he keeps returning to is Laika, the Soviet space dog sent up in Sputnik 2 with no plan to bring her back. Ingemar can't release that image. He stacks it against his own circumstances: mother dying of tuberculosis, separated from his brother, shipped off to a small rural town to live with his uncle and aunt. Against Laika's fate, his own pain b…