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BAXTER |
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Even as a child, I never really cared for movies that featured an animal as a major character. As an adult, the feeling got a lot stronger. The possible exceptions were a good horse opera (western) that required four-legged creatures as the main mode of transportation, or something that removed the animal from its traditional role of kiddie-friend; A Boy and His Dog (1975) for example. When those two slobbering-dog Beethoven films hit the screen, I wondered if all that drool might have landed on Charles Grodin’s face, eating it away with an acid-like vengeance, forcing him to wear all that pasty makeup on his talk show. Bingo proved more interesting (okay, I actually liked this one), especially when the little mutt’s surreal misadventures took him to Duke’s Barbecue and its backroom full of caged canines waiting to be fileted. Don’t take this the wrong way, because I love animals. It’s just that sometimes the cute and cuddly aspect doesn’t work on the screen. |
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| In 1991, French director Jerome Boivin made Baxter, an animal film that broke all the rules. Not only was the antihero title fido not cute, this doggie’s despicable human-like characteristics elevate the film’s black comedy to homicidal horror. The movie follows Baxter’s life with three distinctly different masters, all of whom prove to be ultimately unsatisfying. The first is the elderly Mme. Deville, who is unable to give Baxter the discipline he desires to prevent his “unnatural thoughts.” In addition, Baxter has his eye on a young couple across the street. He likes the young woman’s smell and finds the couple’s active sex life extremely interesting. The last straw is when Mme. Deville tries to cuddle with Baxter in her bath. He arranges for her to take a couple of headlong plunges down the stairs, the second of which has the desired fatal effect. |
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| Baxter goes to live with the young couple and for a while is very happy. Things start to sour when the woman becomes pregnant (Baxter thinks she is sick) and her stomach begins to puff up, rendering her more and more unattractive to Baxter. When the “weak and mindless” baby is born, Baxter attempts to drown the baby in a pond, acting like a bratty only child. Baxter is now booted over to his third master Charles, a 13-year-old Nazi wannabe who worships Hitler, collects fascist propaganda, and has built a replica of Hitler’s end-days bunker at the local dump. Charles gives Baxter the discipline he so craves and for the being he is content. “I have no more unnatural thoughts,” says Baxter, as he cohabitates with the master he calls “a human like me.” Though Baxter is a cold and unsentimental animal, he seems more human than Charles. When Charles commands him to kill a young boy, Baxter balks, knowing that there was no good reason for it (most likely a human being trained as Baxter had been would have done the deed). Sure, Baxter had tried to kill a baby, but for reasons that seemed natural to him. |
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| Baxter is told from the dog’s-eye point of view using a benign voice-over to express Baxter’s thoughts. The settings are fairly grim and almost as unattractive as Baxter himself. Boivin also uses unusual lighting and photographs Baxter from odd angles (including a lot of tight facial shots) that give the film an unnatural feel. And, if you’re one to analyze, you can use Baxter and his masters to represent various socio-political segments of humanity. Baxter will hold your interest, whether you’re in the mood for a dark comedy, a horror film, or even a social allegory. |
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Send Jim an E-mail |
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