Netflix goes to the dogs with new docu-series
In these heated and oft-difficult times, do we need dogs more than ever?
Do we need to rescue them, let them run free, accept their precious help with our most trying physical challenges and revel in their licks and loving nudges?
Filmmakers Glen Zipper and Amy Berg think absolutely yes. They worked together on the new Netflix Original docu-series “Dogs,” which dropped last week.
“We’re in undeniably divisive times right now. We’re all searching for something that everyone can agree on and dogs are probably about as close to that as we get,” said Zipper, who executive produced the six-part project with Berg.
“My brother and I are on completely opposite sides of the political spectrum,” he explained, “but he’s got five dogs and I’ve got my dog, Anthony. We start talking about the dogs and start feeling the love again.”
The series is set around the globe, from suburban Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Lower East of Manhattan to Italy’s Lake Como region and the dangerous streets of Damascus in Syria. There are human heroes, to be sure, but it’s the howl of Zeus and the watchful diligence of Ice, the commitment of curlyhaired Rory and the undying loyalty of Max that drive these stories.
The dogs themselves take you to the brink, serving to inspire and uniquely frame the nearly hour-long chunks of storytelling set in locations and around circumstances chosen with the help of a casting team, said Berg.
There’s plenty of love, and none of something in particular that’s more often than not a standard in dog film fare through time: death. I repeat. Nobody dies. To heck with spoilers. No dog protagonists and no humans, either. That isn’t to say that tears won’t be shed, including by you if you’re truly human, and that people and dogs aren’t in danger or sick or depressed.
Berg directed two of the episodes, including one focused on Zeus, a Siberian husky with the mournful cry of the breed. He’s trapped in Syria after his master flees military service to Germany and that’s where their story begins. She was also at the helm of an episode that follows a devoted Manhattan animal rescuer on a mission to provide second chances to 31 dogs from a Texas shelter, finding them homes around her city. The dogs have the names of famous singers: Jimmy Buffett, Jay Z and Justin Timberlake, to name a few.
The other episodes were directed by a variety of awardwinning filmmakers, including one that uses drone footage to show us from above what it looks like to watch hundreds of former street dogs race happily along lush green hillsides at a 300-acre sanctuary in Costa Rica, and the financial struggles involved to provide them better lives.