Mark Reviews Movies: SPACE DOGS (2020)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 10, 2020

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched a spacecraft with a stray dog named Laika into orbit. It did not end well for the dog, but it was one of the early steps for getting humans into space. Space Dogs tells Laika's story, as well as tales of other dogs and animals that served as early cosmic travelers, but it mostly follows a couple of dogs living on the streets of modern-day Moscow, scavenging and growling and fighting and sheltering for survival.

The setup of Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter's strangely mesmerizing—with an emphasis on "strange"—documentary suggests that, according to legend, Laika's ghost returned to the city streets. In an act of subconsciously imparting a sense of empathy for these animals, the directors and cinematographer Yunus Roy Imer consistently keep the camera low to the ground, as if our view is that of a dog—alive or spectral.

The resulting footage offers little by way of story. The dogs sleep, roam the streets, look for food, show obvious fear when humans are around, accept the company of or aggressively fend off other dogs, and sleep some more, before starting the process over again.

One also bites parked cars, perhaps thinking it might offer nourishment, the alarm might frighten its companions, or some unknowable process of the dog's brain. Such a moment happens later when one of the dogs catches and proceeds to viciously kill a cat (It's all captured in a long, unbroken, and horrifying shot). We can't tell if the dog is trying to eat the cat or play with it or just get it out of the way.

All of this footage, as well as scenes involving a chimpanzee that's hired for parties and a couple of turtles (Both of those species were used in later space tests), is occasionally interrupted by archival footage of animals, almost exclusively dogs, being prepared for, in the process of, and being examined after space flight. The connective tissue between the past and present is superficially about the animals: Laika was a street dog, and here are members of its spiritual progeny.

On a deeper and unspoken level, though, it's about us and how we treat, exploit, abuse, and, once they've served their purpose, quickly dismiss animals. That, at least, is one way of looking at Space Dogs, a weirdly fascinating slice of canine life.

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