Based on the true story of a Moscow street child raised by dogs, the latest enigmatic film from Andrew Kötting is affecting in unpredictable ways
When it comes to immersive cinema, few film-makers can hold a candle to British maverick Andrew Kötting. From the acclaimed coastal journey of Gallivant to the discursive odysseys of By Our Selves and Edith Walks, Kötting’s films place us within the landscape of their narratives – physical, historical and literary. Dividing his energies between installations, performances, books and films, his interdisciplinary works blur the lines between documentary and drama, invention and investigation. While his concerns may at times seem alienatingly esoteric (philosophical abstractions are a recurrent feature), his films are tactile, earthy works that provoke pleasingly gut-level responses. Watching an Andrew Kötting movie is like digging your hands deep into a steamy midden of ideas, leaving you to pick the conceptual dirt from under your fingernails for days.
When it comes to immersive cinema, few film-makers can hold a candle to British maverick Andrew Kötting. From the acclaimed coastal journey of Gallivant to the discursive odysseys of By Our Selves and Edith Walks, Kötting’s films place us within the landscape of their narratives – physical, historical and literary. Dividing his energies between installations, performances, books and films, his interdisciplinary works blur the lines between documentary and drama, invention and investigation. While his concerns may at times seem alienatingly esoteric (philosophical abstractions are a recurrent feature), his films are tactile, earthy works that provoke pleasingly gut-level responses. Watching an Andrew Kötting movie is like digging your hands deep into a steamy midden of ideas, leaving you to pick the conceptual dirt from under your fingernails for days.
- 6/10/2018
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
His new film, Lek and the Dogs, is about a boy who lived with a pack of wild animals in Moscow, and was inspired by Hattie Naylor’s haunting play. The film-maker and playwright talk about archetypal stories and abandoned children
On the desolate streets of Boris Yeltsin’s Moscow in the mid-90s, a four-year-old boy named Ivan Mishukov walked out of the home he shared with his mother and his alcoholic stepfather and began living with a pack of wild dogs. For two years, he ran with the mutts, begging for food that he distributed among them and curling up with them at night to protect himself from the harsh climate. The police tried several times to apprehend him, only to be thwarted in their attempts by his snarling posse. Eventually, he was packed off to a children’s shelter. He stopped growling and went back to speaking.
On the desolate streets of Boris Yeltsin’s Moscow in the mid-90s, a four-year-old boy named Ivan Mishukov walked out of the home he shared with his mother and his alcoholic stepfather and began living with a pack of wild dogs. For two years, he ran with the mutts, begging for food that he distributed among them and curling up with them at night to protect himself from the harsh climate. The police tried several times to apprehend him, only to be thwarted in their attempts by his snarling posse. Eventually, he was packed off to a children’s shelter. He stopped growling and went back to speaking.
- 6/8/2018
- by Ryan Gilbey
- The Guardian - Film News
An unusual, semi-autobiographical film by English director Andrew Kotting. By Peter Bradshaw
Here is a strange film whose strangeness is disguised – though only at first, and not for long – by the mannerisms of documentary realism. It is avowedly based on director Andrew Kotting's own childhood, and as with all autobiographical works, some of the incidental interest lies in wondering which parts come directly from real life, and which are wish-fulfilment inventions, intended to correct the past and alleviate its pain. Jean-Luc Bideau plays Ivul, an elderly, and somewhat cantankerous Franco-Russian patriarch who owns a handsome manor house in France with extensive woodland – but who was evidently even richer back in his native Russia. His younger wife Marie (Aurélia Petit) has provided him with four children: Alex (Jacob Auzanneau) and Freya (Adélaïde Leroux) are in their late teens, Capucine (Capucine Aubriot) and Manon (Manon Aubriot) are hardly more than toddlers.
Here is a strange film whose strangeness is disguised – though only at first, and not for long – by the mannerisms of documentary realism. It is avowedly based on director Andrew Kotting's own childhood, and as with all autobiographical works, some of the incidental interest lies in wondering which parts come directly from real life, and which are wish-fulfilment inventions, intended to correct the past and alleviate its pain. Jean-Luc Bideau plays Ivul, an elderly, and somewhat cantankerous Franco-Russian patriarch who owns a handsome manor house in France with extensive woodland – but who was evidently even richer back in his native Russia. His younger wife Marie (Aurélia Petit) has provided him with four children: Alex (Jacob Auzanneau) and Freya (Adélaïde Leroux) are in their late teens, Capucine (Capucine Aubriot) and Manon (Manon Aubriot) are hardly more than toddlers.
- 7/22/2010
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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