Furandâsu no inu (1975) User Reviews

My favourite anime series of the 70s.

[Rueiro · 8/10 · 15 May 2023]

This series, I used to watch it in Spain on its debut, back in the years 79/80, when I was a small child. A few days ago I watched all 52 episodes again in YouTube, in a three-day marathon.

The story is far longer and complex than it is in the book, which I read a few years ago. Of course it had to be, in order to fill 52 episodes. There are a lot of invented characters and situations, some of them more interesting than others. But we learn that poor people are always suffering, and if they enjoy a little moment of happiness, is only to be spoilt by something unfair and nasty happening to them at the end of the day. Poor people can never win.

They couldn't make this series today, in this era of politically correct nanny culture. The associations of parents and of the protection of children would scream murder in capital letters. Nello gets beaten, the dog Patrash gets flogged, Nello is exploited by heartless adults now and again, then Granddad dies, Nello is falsely accused of arson, then he is evicted from his hut because he lost his job and can not pay the rent. And when you thought than nothing worse can happen now, we reach the disastrous ending. No, definitely this would be considered "unnaceptable" by today's crystal cannons.

But back then kids were shown the injustices of life, and even their cartoon heroes suffered the harshness and evil of this world, and even died because of it. Real life is hard, and bad things always happen to good people. We learnt this from a very early age, and perhaps it helped us to grow stronger for what we would have to face in the future.

Moving and Beautiful

[s.g.miles · 15 November 2001]

This movie is both intensely moving and beautiful. The artwork and animation are fine, though certainly not ground-breaking, even for it's time. The strength of this movie comes from the tragic beauty of the story and the haunting score.

I typically consider myself something of a cold-hearted realist, and watched The Dog of Flanders safe in the knowledge that it was a fictional and that my masculine facade would be uncracked by the emotional story unfolding on the screen before me. It was, I'm happy to say, a misplaced confidence. Throughout the story there are light and dark moments but overall there is a slow decent into gloom. As the film passes the halfway point I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper until totally submerged in the atmosphere. And as the snowstorm in the penultimate scene roars around Nelo there I was on the road side watching him pass by, and as he sits in the freezing church I stood amongst the pews observing. It's an almost ghostly experience, I felt as though I was with the boy and his dog in the later scenes, I wanted to break the silence and say something reassuring to them, offer them solace against the cruel world, but they could neither hear or see me and the drama unfolded through a wafer thin layer of reality.

And when the film was over I sat and watched the credits, wiped the tears from my eyes and tried to decide what it was that was making me so emmotional. I thought about it for almost 2 days solid, and 6 months on I'm still not sure what it is that's quite so captivating. The story is a much trimmed down version of a long-running Japanese series but that doesn't take anything away from the contents of this wonderful film.

I urge you to watch this film (only the subtitled version though), and draw your own conclusions, and if when you too are sitting in that cold dark church in the penultimate act, you hear a sniffle from the next pew along, apologies in advance because it's probably me.

Very Moving, BUT...

[roxyripcurlgurl · 10/10 · 22 November 2006]

First off I love the movie, but the whole movie is down hill from the start.I have seen the entire TV show and when i saw the movie, it was upsetting in some ways because it does not show the relationship between Nello and Patorash, Aloa, and his grandfather. Any person who has seen the TV show will know the bond between the boy and his dog. The TV show shows many happy moments in this boys life and the movie only shows all the sad and depressing parts. I think that it may have been better put together if it started with happy moments and then the sad ending.So if anyone who would like to see the TV show, i think it is a very good idea because the movie does not seem fit for such a great story.

A short review of the movie version (dubbed)

[Jeremy Bristol · 31 May 2001]

First of all, The Dog of Flanders was a famously tragic '70s animated series in Japan (some future Studio Ghibli staff are said to have worked on it, and I think Hayao Miyazaki did backgrounds on one episode), based on the same-named Christmas novel by Oui'da, a Flemish writer. I heard that the series had the same effect on Japanese children as Bambi or Old Yeller had on American children. This movie was released around 1997 as a condensed version of the series (with retro-style character designs and everything). The American version was released by Pioneer a year or so ago.

You know you're in for a bumpy ride when Sean Young (as the grown-up Alois) is worse than the obviously-adult actress playing a little girl. The dubbing varies from horrendous to barely tolerable (in the case of Nello and Robert Loggia's character). Because of this, I was unable to experience the emotions of the story.

However, I don't believe any movies should be judged by it's dubbed version (I don't think any movies should be dubbed at all). Visually, though very much retro in design, the movie has beautiful backgrounds and is smoothly animated, if not nearly as creatively as My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki.

Spoilers: For those who haven't read the original book or seen a movie version besides the cop-out 1999 live action version, the story of Nello and Patrache (the dog of the title) is a tragedy similar to the "double suicide" in Grave of the Fireflies in that they both die in the end after suffering through many hardships and betrayals (and as in Grave, there is a framing device that lets you "know" from the beginning, so that the deaths don't seem like a cheap melodramatic device--the important thing is not that they die, it's what happens when they are alive that leads to it).

As soon as they put up a voting icon, I'll vote a 3 for the dubbed version, and an initial 7 for the subtitled version which I hope will be on DVD soon.