HEART OF A DOG

(director/writer: Laurie Anderson; cinematographer: Joshua Zucker-Pluda/Toshiaki Ozawa/Laurie Anderson; editor: Melody London/Katherine Nolfi; music: Laurie Anderson; cast: Jason Berg (Veterinarian), Laurie Anderson, Bob Currie (Doctor); Runtime: 75; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Dan Janvey/ Laurie Anderson; Canal Street Communications; 2015)

“A brilliant, poignant and personal meditation on accepting death based on Anderson’s Tibetan Buddhist experience.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Avant-gard multimedia artist Laurie Anderson(“Home of the Brave: A Film by Laurie Anderson“) offers her first feature film in thirty years. It’s a brilliant, poignant and personal meditation on accepting death based on Anderson’s Tibetan Buddhist experience. The principal story is about the loss of her beloved rat terrier called Lolabelle. But it also inter-cuts to show how the Lower Manhattan resident grieves for the loss of her rock singer husband in 2013, Lou Reed, and her mother, who died around the time of her dog.

Animation and home movies of the dog playing the piano and a voice-over narration by Anderson, all make things lyrical. The shapeless movie is built around its free-association structure, which offers a playful humor, discerning observations about the filmmaker’s surroundings, a commentary on post-9/11 and eccentric re-created dream sequences.

It’s an innovative experimental documentary that should not only please the arthouse crowd but others looking for a quality film.

REVIEWED ON 3/2/2016 GRADE: B+    https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/