Some love for Ohh My Dog

It was interesting to see a poster for Amit Rai’s new film Ohh My Dog on a wall just across the road from my flat, near the Malviya Nagar metro station. I have never seen this space used for such promotions – wonder if it has anything to do with the good work done by Stray Buddy across Saket (and other colonies).

I am not usually keen to watch dog films (for too many reasons to get into here), but I went for Ohh My Dog and liked it a great deal. For the first two-thirds or so, anyway. The cross-cutting between stories (one about a boy searching for a lost dog, the other about a dog leading the search for a lost boy) was well done and moving, but I thought the film became protracted and too expository in the last stretch (with an overlong semi-comedic track involving Pawan Malhotra and a precocious kid). Also, at some point, it turned the main dog Oscar into a super-hero, which didn’t quite work for me.

But there are many good things overall in this very well-intentioned film (good intentions aren’t normally a big criterion for me as a viewer, and as readers might have gathered I tend to be suspicious of virtuous/affirmative cinema and the discourses around it; but I’m happy to make an exception for a film that champions street dogs). Also there was a nifty little performance by Pankaj Tripathi, whom I hadn’t much liked in the last 2-3 things I saw him in. He and Sulakhyana Baruah play two teachers who diligently aid the rescue efforts (in the two separate stories which never intersect) – their reassuring presence being an important counterpoint to the film’s depiction of cops, which isn’t complimentary.

P.S. a small thing that struck me as being off in the opening scene – a nice, sentimental scene where a deceased service dog is being given state honours. There are three other (living) dogs, standing in attendance, and when the loud gunshots begin as part of the tribute, there is no reaction from them – no flinching, nothing. Maybe I’m over-triggered by my horrendous Diwali experiences with street dogs, but I couldn’t help flinching myself in anticipation at those sounds.
(Much later in the film, there is also a scene where loud firecrackers are flung out of a car with the intention of disorienting a dog – but again, the canine’s reaction seemed too placid to me.)

P.P.S. I had heard beforehand that this "small" film is gaining attention through word of mouth, but it was still very nice to see firsthand that the hall was packed - and the audience, though I didn't get the impression it was made up of dog-obsessives, was receptive and sympathetic.