Cita:
Adam and Dog 2012 ★★★½
Watched Feb 10, 2013
Lee Curtis’s review:
Minkyu Lee’s Adam and Dog is a charming, but flawed animated short that, on the surface at least, focuses on the eternal bond between a man and his pet dog. However, with the director’s allegorical approach and the narrative’s biblical undertones, there’s a lot more to this film than the audience initially expected.
From the moment it begins there are overt clues that point towards a religious underpinning as the narrative anchors itself to the Genesis story, with a Garden of Eden setting and its lead characters Adam and Eve (though her name is never made explicit). These visual metaphors promote the idea that the loyalty and friendship a dog exhibits towards man began in conjunction with what Christianity believes as the creation of humanity.
However, as the narrative develops there is an argument that the dog is being used as an allegory for God, which is reinforced with the obvious anagram when you reverse the words. With this uncovers what could be Lee’s central message to his thematic approach, that the loyalty, friendship and forgiveness the dog exhibits is an allegorical representation of the eternal closeness between God and humanity even after they had been banished from the Garden of Eden.
Putting its religious connotations aside, Adam and Dog is a sweet story that invites audience discussion and participation, though is let down with a sloppy visual style and poor pacing throughout the unnecessary sixteen-minute runtime.
