A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A Brilliant Conflict

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

"Un Perro Llamado Dolor" (A Dog Called Pain) is a Spanish film, which combines very detailed black and white drawings with limited animation. This film is divided in chapters (Or "portraits") being each one of them an homage to the work and lives of several artist from the world, such as Goya, Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, among others. Without any spoken line (Besides of a few title cards) all the strength from this movie is carried by the beauty and strangeness of the scenes: Each sequence from this film possesses a lot of dream-like images and surreal motifs. Some of those images are violent and gratuitous, and even grotesque at moments. However, at the same time, every single frame from this movie has a unique, unforgettable quality and lyrical beauty that not many movies have. Even when some of the sequences feel way too long (Personally, I think that the part about Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel was a bit tedious) my overall impression from this film was very positive, being (Along with "De Profundis") one of my favorite animated movies made in Spain. "A Dog Called Pain" is a beautiful, underrated film that deserves more recognition, and I appreciate it as a brave and unique work of art.

`A Dog Called Pain' is a film drawn and animated by the author, Luis Eduardo Aute, who made more than four thousand drawings which were later processed with the latest digital technology for rending into 2D and 3D. It was a colossal enterprise that began with the first drawings in 1995. Aute has dedicated the past two years wholly to the film. The film borrows its name from the dog owned by the late Mexican painter Frida Kahlo.The film, comprising seven stories or portraits, is focused on the artist-model relationship, and continuity is supplied by the dog, co-star of nearly all the episodes. Luis Eduardo Aute reconsiders the relations of such painters as Goya, Duchamp, Picasso, Sorolla, Romero de Torres, Frida Kahlo, Dali, and Velazquez with their models, their environments, and their times. This reconsideration is, above all, a movie, and it employs the most classic film language, but at the same time it is a reflection about art and artists, their inner lives and their worlds.In addition, homage is made in the film to such cinematic greats as Eisenstein, Buñuel, and Woody Allen. One of the great triumphs of `A Dog Called Pain' is the sheer beauty of Aute's projected images. Intimately paced, viewing the film is like a cinematic walk through a museum. At times, long-held images will have subtle movements such as a blink of an eye that creates the effect of the movie screen as a canvas. Nominated for a 2001 Goya (Spain's Oscars) for Best Animated Film, `A Dog Called Pain' is a unique work of art.The film, an exciting blend of humour, violence and sex – in a word, of art. The story employs the simplest resources of cinema, and is the singular creation of an artist in love with the camera, as well as with music and painting, two fields in which he has gained fame. Luis Eduardo Aute is a living Spanish national treasure, acclaimed and loved for his music, artwork and poetry.