A Dog Barking At The Moon

Joan Miro's "A Dog Barking at the Moon" is a surreal painting that, while captivating, can leave the viewer wondering exactly what is being depicted. So too is Xiang Zi's debut film of the same name, which is at times beautifully poetic, and at times a puzzlement.

The story concerns a pregnant woman named Xiaouyo (Nan Ji in a nearly comatose performance) who returns home to Beijing with her Western husband, only to relive the unsettled trauma of her childhood (seen repeatedly in flashback, as the non-linear film jumps the decades with abandon) with a hateful mother (a wonderful Naren Hua) and gay father. The latter shows greater interest in his dog than his family. Why would she ever go back there, especially as she prepares to bring a new life into the world? Why does she (or we) care when her mother (who says in so many words that she has been unhappy since her daughter's birth) becomes ensnared in a cult? How can we empathize with a father whose struggle with his homosexuality is left undramatized? We can't, and we don't.

It's not the story (many elements of which appear to be Zi's own) that make "A Dog Barking at the Moon" of interest, but rather the storytelling. Like its namesake painting, Zi's film isn't always interested in naturalistic representation. When she is, the camera work is annoyingly static. But when she gets creative, her work gets interesting. A scene set in a car is depicted with characters seated in chairs in a black box space, miming a steering wheel. The final shot in a rainy amusement park may be heavy with symbolism, but it's also beautiful. This isn't a film as adept at storytelling as it is at artistic flourish, but sometimes those flourishes are unusual enough to justify the endeavor.