Just in case you missed it, The Vimeo festival winning film was...

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I've been putting off watching it because I started it a while back and realized that it was about a dog dying, and I knew I wouldn't handle it well.

I was right. Amazing piece though.
 
Guys, a few hundred people died while you were watching the clip, most of them from famine and diseases easily cured with medicine that costs a few dollars. People die in the streets even in the civilised world. Sorry, but I'm totally indifferent to the death of a dog when I have this in mind, and as a human being, I find this sentimentalism and the clip at hand exploitative and insulting. He lived a better life than many humans and even enjoyed a better death. If we are so sensititive that we get sentimental about a dog, we shouldn't even be able to sleep at night considering what's happening out there to humans like you and me.
 
To me its not really about the dog, its about sharing in another human's suffering.

But I agree with you Otis, we should be losing sleep at night about the injustices in this world- and doing something about them.
 
Otis Grapsas said:
Guys, a few hundred people died while you were watching the clip, most of them from famine and diseases easily cured with medicine that costs a few dollars. People die in the streets even in the civilised world. Sorry, but I'm totally indifferent to the death of a dog when I have this in mind, and as a human being, I find this sentimentalism and the clip at hand exploitative and insulting. He lived a better life than many humans and even enjoyed a better death. If we are so sensititive that we get sentimental about a dog, we shouldn't even be able to sleep at night considering what's happening out there to humans like you and me.
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Well, I couldn't disagree more with your indifference to Oden, and I think it's sad that you can't appreciate the relationship the man had with his dog. Just because there are bigger issues out there doesn't mean we have to forsake the littler issues. But to each his own.

It's a damn good movie about a damn important story IMHO.
 
awelgraven said:
Well, I couldn't disagree more with your indifference to Oden, and I think it's sad that you can't appreciate the relationship the man had with his dog. Just because there are bigger issues out there doesn't mean we have to forsake the littler issues. But to each his own.

It's a damn good movie about a damn important story IMHO.
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Amen and well said.
 
Otis Grapsas said:
Guys, a few hundred people died while you were watching the clip, most of them from famine and diseases easily cured with medicine that costs a few dollars. People die in the streets even in the civilised world. Sorry, but I'm totally indifferent to the death of a dog when I have this in mind, and as a human being, I find this sentimentalism and the clip at hand exploitative and insulting. He lived a better life than many humans and even enjoyed a better death. If we are so sensititive that we get sentimental about a dog, we shouldn't even be able to sleep at night considering what's happening out there to humans like you and me.
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If this story was just "about a dog", then Citizen Kane was "about a sled".
This short was about redemption. It was about a guy that used to only care about himself and hurting others finding that other beings have feelings and value.

The death of the dog symbolizes the owners realization that he can never regain his misspent youth- he realizes that the dogs mission in life was a pure one- unlike his own.

You might argue that the euthanization was gratuitous and I might agree with you- but it was real and I connected with the story.

If you are saying that Eliot should have been saving lives in the Sudan rather than making a film about this subject, then I would challenge you to weigh the making of a new camera system vs. building a water treatment facility in Darfur.
 
What makes us human is our ability to sympathize and relate emotionally to many subjects. For a great many people, the feelings that accompany the loss of a friend - human or animal - aren't disparate. As caretakers for domesticated animals, the decision to put a sick or dying animal down is one that showcases our most human of qualities - compassion. We recently put our dog of thirteen years to sleep and it was as difficult as it has ever been. It was made harder because we thought he was getting better after an illness. When it became apparent that he was dying, we forced ourselves to put aside our own need for his continued companionship in favor of his comfort.

Our three young children will certainly take that tough life experience forward and relate it toward how they view the world. And it's a world made better by compassionate people who fight every day against people who have no feelings for their fellow man beyond hostility and disdain. They'll need every good experience they can gather along the way.
 
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