“Dog Man”
Shana Besson
Luc Besson let the dogs out in Venice on Thursday evening and unveiled his potential comeback vehicle, Dogman. Besson and the cast were showered with approving cheers from the audience.
The cast, including lead actors Caleb Landry Jones, Jojo T Gibbs and Clemens Schick, were visibly touched by the response to the film and the audience stood for a good six minutes. Jones stood up, untied his braid and shook his hair before taking off his bow tie in relief. Besson hugged his cast before returning to his seat and wiping tears from his eyes.
Besson’s 21st feature, which sold well before its Venice debut, is being closely watched as a possible return for the director to Lucy and The Fifth Element. The past half-decade has been a tumultuous time for both Besson’s business and his reputation, following the flop of his mega-budget sci-fi film “Valerian” (2017), the implosion of his French studio EuropaCorp and a #MeToo scandal with allegations of rape and sexual assault.
Caleb Landry Jones (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) plays the eponymous Dogman in the film, who was severely abused as a child but survived thanks to his supernatural affinity for dogs. When the character is taken in by the police after a violent incident, Jones’ character undergoes a psychiatric evaluation by prison psychiatrist Evelyn (Past Lives actress Jojo T. Gibbs) and tells her his life story. The film is set in New Jersey, but was shot primarily in a studio in France.
If this were Cannes, Besson’s latest film would be a sham for the Palm Dog, canine cinema’s highest honor. In any case, the director will have to be content with the warm embrace of his Fidos by the audience at the Lido.