An orange cat belonging to the main characters appears throughout the film. It is never threatened and doesn’t come to any harm.
members who see it tomorrow). It deals with a sweet dog named Hagen tossed out on to the streets by its owner. Hagen has to fend for himself and along the way is turned by horrible human beings from a sweet canine into a vicious killer, sparking all the people in the town to literally “Beware Of Dog(s)”. The brilliant filmmaker, Kornel Mundruczo says it is an allegory for Hungary itself. It was perhaps the most memorable film I saw in Cannes but many argued with me about it and couldn’t get through it. I hope it’s not penalized by voters for showing realistic dog violence and death ( and nothing happened to the dogs , folks. Its star , Max, actually 
wowed the paparazzi at his Cannes press conference). At the other end of the Foreign Language schedule this year is France’s entry , Saint Laurent, one of two 2014 films about Yves Saint Laurent, the famed designer who had a thing for bulldogs. But quite frankly this version from director Bertrand Bonello that was in Cannes competition, with very mixed reviews, completely lost me in the scene where a drug induced Saint Laurent spills all his many, many pills on the floor followed by a gut-wrenching scene where we watch his beloved dog, Moujik gobble them up and then slowly die of a drug overdose shown in great 
detail. I have a feeling some Academy viewers may feel the same way. Then again a very affecting dog death scene didn’t affect the chances of Denmark’s very fine, The Hunt , which managed to make the final five nominees last year. This is how DTDD describes it for sensitive viewers:
Early in the film, a deer is shot and killed. The main character’s dog Fanny is killed and delivered wrapped up to her master (Lucas). We don’t see what is wrapped up when Lucas first looks but we can guess. However, his son fights to see what it is and then we see it is Fanny. When Lucas is burying his dog, we see several shots of her lying dead on the ground.
Oscar voters in the Foreign Language category sensitive to animal violence do have one thing to be thankful for at least. Japan wisely didn’t submit Naomi Kawase’s dreadful, Still The Water , a 2014 Cannes competition entry that opens on a close up of a goat’s throat being slashed open as blood swarms out (and then repeated later in the film). Yuk. Did we really need that – twice. Perhaps the MPAA should create a rating system aimed at adults who might want to know if a movie has these kinds of scenes. We don’t care about the human violence and nudity, MPAA. I haven’t seen the great majority of the 83 films on view this year for Best Foreign Language Film so who knows what pleasures await ? But consider yourself warned, animal loving Oscar voters.
