Stray: In the Shade Film Festival Review
Stray: In the Shade Film Festival Review A canine rebuttal to the NZIFF's 2017 cats in Turkey outing Kedi would be an easy way to dismiss Stray. In truth, though, it does sail extremely close this simple description as Elizabeth Lo's camera follows a triptych of street dogs around Turkey's streets. Beginning with Zeytin's soulful eyes, and his looking for love demeanour, and taking in other puppies at later stages, Lo clings closely to her canines, building and strengthening a bond that already exists between the viewer and man's best friend. From tackling fraught situations of meeting other dogs and the consequences of whether that can erupt in either play or predator attack, Lo builds tension where there would normally be none. It's very much an MO of a dog's life and nothing else (a scant number of scenes feature humans and are shot at human heights) as the camera stays low to the ground and in the animal's world. Whether it's trying to get food ...