THE STORY – In this adaptation of Alexandra Fuller’s memoir, actor-director Embeth Davidtz examines the collapse of colonialism through the eyes of eight-year-old Bobo as Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) approaches its pivotal 1980 election, marking the end of white rule.
THE CAST – Lexi Venter, Embeth Davidtz, Zikhona Bali, Fumani Shilubana, Rob Van Vuuren & Anina Reed
THE TEAM – Embeth Davidtz (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 98 Minutes
“Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight” offers a unique perspective on the final days of collapsing white colonial rule in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Seen through the eyes of eight-year-old Bobo (newcomer Lexi Venter), the film presents not a traditional plot but rather a series of glimpses into a society in pathetic defiance of the obvious. As an election that the colonizers are certain to lose draws closer each day, settlers dance and drink, oblivious to the civil war drawing closer. The film’s “Great Gatsby“-esque lifestyle, with all the arrogance of the Buchanans but none of the wealth, is a stark portrayal of society’s delusions.
Bobo is the audience proxy. She sees the obvious around her in ways her adult peers cannot and yet is even more oblivious than they are. She’s at once wise beyond her years and crushingly naive. In one breath, she will issue a withering critique about the irony of asserting one’s “superior breeding” while living in a crusty, dilapidated house. In the next breath, she will reference noticing her parents moving furniture around while not wearing clothes. She smokes cigarettes and plays with dolls. She scares adult acquaintances by speaking flippantly of death while discussing views of the afterlife in a way that suggests she doesn’t understand what it even means to die.
Bobo spends her days digging up buried heirlooms from the dirt left on the property by pre-colonial inhabitants, oblivious to the insult she is inflicting. She travels into town with her alcoholic mother (Embeth Davidtz, who also directs the film) to visit drunk, bigoted, and, at times, predatory friends and family. She also plays with one of the family’s farm workers, Sarah (Zikhona Bali), who dotes on Bobo like a surrogate daughter and in ways Bobo’s mother does not, even as it becomes increasingly apparent that by engaging in such a visible friendship with a white child, Sarah is endangering herself.
All the while, news updates from the radio about the ongoing civil war and regular cutaways to binocular views from guerillas in the hills build a slow sense of dread. The viewer knows the end is near even if Bobo’s family and friends do not. Interspersed with the feeling of dread are brief flickers of flashbacks that indicate that something terrible happened to one of Bobo’s siblings that transformed her mother into an alcoholic who berates servants and shoots at wildlife with an assault rifle. Slowly putting the pieces together as to what exactly happened is one of the film’s more rewarding mysteries, as it ties into a central theme of acknowledging responsibility for the role we each may have played in tragedy, even when our actions were unintentional.
“Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight” is a film that takes its time. Its slow pace, while at times bordering on tedium, is a deliberate choice that allows the viewer to absorb and ponder the narrative entirely. This philosophical musing is both a strength and a weakness, as it works best when there’s still ample craft on display to enjoy. The film’s focus on the philosophical musings of its narrator and endless cutaways to handheld shots of nature, like “Beasts of the Southern Wild” or the films of Terrence Malick, relies on the effectiveness of the filmmaking technique in capturing the beauty of nature and artfully stitching together its montages in a hypnotic fashion.
That this is Davidtz’s directorial debut is apparent. The handheld nature camera work and editing aren’t as refined as on display in “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” and indeed not the Malick films. Indeed, the Ronin or other Steadicam-type device showcases some noticeably jerky, choppy camera movements that seem to have been mistaken instead of deliberate cinematic choices. The lighting is low contrast in a way that doesn’t showcase the majesty of the Zimbabwean landscape as effectively as possible. However, specific sequences do at least capture the griminess of the interiors of the homes and dance halls in a way that conjures visceral disgust.
Fortunately, Lexi Venter’s mesmerizing performance compensates for these technical shortcomings. Her maturity and expressive range are remarkable for her age. She treads a fine line between embodying the same bigoted views of her parents and friends while also exuding such warmth, kindness, and humor that makes it impossible not to sympathize with her. Her narrative musings, primarily well-written and often very funny, provide a special way to understand the background of the ongoing conflict in Rhodesia. This explanation, filtered through the mind of an eight-year-old, avoids feeling like clunky exposition and instead offers a fresh and engaging way to understand the historical context.
This ties into the film’s other strength, which is simply that the settler-occupation in Rhodesia hasn’t been documented as extensively in modern cinema as in apartheid South Africa. We only get a glimpse of the heinousness and cavalier cruelty, entitlement, and disregard for the lives of prior inhabitants through this brief window of time on display in the film, and one that is filtered through the eyes of a child at that, but the film still manages to be informative on an under-depicted subject.
Davidtz has a knack for conjuring powerful feelings as a director. An ever-present sense of melancholy, almost overpowering sadness, pervades the film, even before the narrative descends into outright tragedy. “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight” is far from a masterpiece, but it suggests that Davidtz has undoubted strengths as a filmmaker. The film’s ability to evoke such powerful emotions is sure to leave the audience deeply moved. Sundance and Telluride have a long history of introducing low-budget directorial debuts from filmmakers who still find their footing but show real promise. This is one of those classic indies.
