Author Mary Zournazi began making this documentary with an eye toward exploring her Greek roots in Athens, but soon shifted her focus, capturing the current austerity crisis and social unrest in Greece through a telling symptom of mass dysfunction. That indicator is the shocking number of abandoned dogs living on the streets of Athens, released by impoverished owners, and surviving through the largesse of a few humans who provide them food. Unlike the odd and wonderful Kedi (VL-11/17)—a real-life portrait of the warm relationship between thousands of stray cats and the people of Istanbul—Dogs of Democracy is a much sadder tale. Dogs are social creatures who thrive through close relationships with their owners. On their own, discarded and homeless dogs (many are seen here with their collars still on) look lonely, miserable, and desperate. Zournazi, trying to put a happier spin on it, tries to make the case that we can all learn something from the way dogs demonstrate qualities (loyalty, love) that would help the world solve problems with compassion, but she is not entirely persuasive. Still, she does show viewers something viscerally emblematic about how bad things are in Greece, and how norms can quickly be trampled. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)
Dogs of Democracy
(2016) 57 min. In English & Greek w/English subtitles. DVD: $100: public libraries; $250: colleges & universities. Study guide included. EPF Media. PPR. ISBN: 978-1-933724-51-5. Volume 33, Issue 2
Dogs of Democracy
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