LFF 2020: Stray
It is currently illegal in Turkey to put down or even hold captive a stray dog, meaning the streets are full of wild hounds living their lives out in the open. Director Elizabeth Lo, in a touching tribute to her own childhood dog, has spent two years on the streets of Istanbul capturing the day to day life of a stray dog and the result is something truly special.
The hero of this story is Zeytin, a beautiful golden mutt who seems to express more emotion in her eyes than the most talented of actors. It’s incredible to see how intelligent she is so that, even though there is barely any dialogue, it’s really easy to follow what is going on in her mind in reaction to a certain situation. Part of this is probably helped by Lo herself, who shoots the entire documentary at the level of a dog’s height — an effective tool in drawing the audience in to this different world.
Lo also manages to successfully balance tone, merging both the tough, harsh reality of living on the streets with tongue in cheek moments that undeniably put a smile on your face. Every time there is an attack on Zeytin from another stray dog, there is a moment of levity to even it out, such as when an elderly Turkish woman furiously tries to separate two dogs humping during a women’s rights march.
It’s also a wonder to see how different homeless dogs are treated as opposed to homeless people, although Lo is insistent that the only difference is culturally, with Turkey being ahead of the rest of the world in terms of how they view strays. One particular moment sees Zeytin and another dog fighting it out over two scraps of meat found in a pile of rubbish. A bin man approaches and, instead of pushing the dogs away as one might expect, he instead tells the dogs off for not sharing and divvys out the scraps accordingly.
Another thing that Lo manages to do is subtly imbue her work with the human factor. This isn’t simply a piece about the lives of dogs, but also of the people of Turkey. As well as the women's rights march as mentioned above, there are several moments of human life that the dogs inexplicably find themselves tied up in. One shot of a stray shows them falling asleep to a political broadcast about the Turkish Prime Minister attempting to seize more power. The dog’s best friends are a group of Syrian refugees who find themselves sleeping on a construction site most evenings to avoid being detained by the police. Although the dogs have nothing whatsoever to do with human matters, they still can’t help but be involved. It’s an interesting cycle that Lo has latched on to and she presents it in the most natural way possible.
Stray just so happens to be one of the most stunning fly-on-the-wall documentaries ever made and features a unique look on human society, just as much as it does with canine society.