Dogs Don't Wear Pants

There's a moment in your past that has affected, the way you interface and stay connected, and it's taken quite a tangent, it involves a bottle of scent, but that's what makes you stand tall, fully erected. It starts with replication of that moment, when your world turned upside down with flooded torment, and you've found another soul, she is the south to your north pole, you couldn't hope for a more invested, proponent. But the path to your salvation is not easy, and it may make the odd folk a little queasy, it might take your breath away, there may be plier-work at play, and to some, it may be thought of as, quite sleazy.

Dogs Don't Wear Pants (Finland, J.P. Valkeapaa, 2019) - "It is by going down into the abyss," said Joseph Campbell "that we recover the treasures of life."

A surgeon, Juha, sinks into depression after his wife drowns. Neglecting his job, daughter and health, Juha is breaking down. When he stumbles into the orbit of Mona, a dominatrix, she becomes an obsession for him. Through her there are flashbacks to moments with his wife. Juha cannot get enough. Mona too is infatuated. Here is someone impervious to her charms. As they push each other deeper, someone has got to blink.

The radiance of Dogs Don't Wear Pants is the focus on the characters of both Mona and Juha, not one or the other. Also, it is deep and enlightening in ways I did not expect. There is no simple formula and no one has sold out to "the man." The film is liberating, cathartic. "You are alive after all," says a friend to Juha. So are all who witness and appreciate this little gem. Streaming on Shudder. Four and a half of five stars.

I blind bought a ticket for this because of the amazing poster and interesting name, that was an amazing decision.

It's an odd, beautiful and hilarious story, presented with insane talent. This director is exceptional, every frame is beautiful and interesting. The film is very low on dialogue which lets the director show how amazing he is at visual storytelling.

Apparently people walked out of this? It has some hard to watch bodily harm scenes but to be honest it's really not that bad. No one in my screening walked out.

If this director keeps up this quality he is going to be hailed as a master in 50 years

Finnish movies aren't very well received abroad. One can think of a reason of them being too ordinary. This film is anything but ordinary by Finnish standards and it had hard time getting funding from the film commission.

The main character suffers a great loss and desperately wants to keep his lost loved one close to him.

Story is intriguing but the film itself lacks depth. I'd have enjoyed it a lot more if the characters had been more developed and more time, like first twenty minutes would have been used to tell the family's story before the unfortunate accident. Now bypassing briefly and leaving the background story and suffering to the behind, the film subsides into being just a numbing showcase of Bdsm fetishes. I found myself laughing at it many times and it was very entertaining but not in the way the creators intended it to be.

It's certainly not a film to everyone's taste and it's not a masterpiece either. It's a shame that it's so mediocre because it could have been something.

Hard hitting at times and at other times utterly hilarious. Dialogue was kept quite minimal which I enjoyed considering it was subtitled, but this just highlighted how good the camera work was. Please go and watch thus movie!