The Plague Dogs

It probably doesn’t take much guessing to discern why Martin Rosen’s The Plague Dogs seems to have a commercial appeal as gaunt as the film’s furry protagonists by the end. While both the folks responsible for putting Grave of the Fireflies in children’s film festivals and general audiences seem to finally be recognizing more adult approaches to animation as a valid medium that stands apart from children’s fare, this film’s obscurity is probably proof enough that audiences still can’t stand to see animated furries meet a cruel fate. Among a slew of predictable animated adventures of anthropomorphic domestic animals, The Plague Dogs is a most unconventional beast, although one that’s most certainly more memorable than its cult status would suggest.

An ominous series of shots of a water tank open the film, followed by the image of a black dog struggling to keep above the water. He eventually loses his strength and sinks, only to be recovered by men in lab coats and revitalized with an air tube. It is this heart melting sequence that sets the tone for the film and will probably have children cowering and bawling. The fact that this scene occurs before even the five minute mark foreshadows the sheer emotional poignancy of the film.

The dog, known as Rowf, ends up escaping his holding pen in the animal research center in which he is held. Following him in a hellish journey through a darkened laboratory is a fox terrier named Snitter, who has undergone experimental brain surgery that renders him subject to dementia and hallucinations. Escaping through an incinerator chute, the two dogs reach the outside world and flee to the surrounding countryside. Snitter, despite his horrible abuse by men, dreams of reacquiring the life he had with his benevolent former master. Rowf on the other hand, has been hopelessly embittered by his treatment and dismisses Snitter’s optimism. It is their fear of mistreatment, as well as their interactions revolving around their varying pessimism that influence their actions around humans. These actions end up deciding the difference between friend and foe and cause the same people who could have just as easily treated the dogs warmly to shun them.

Unable to win the compassion of any human beings, Snitter and Rowf decide to become wild animals and kill to survive. They luckily come across a tod (male fox), who agrees to help them hunt in exchange for part of their kills. The dog’s actions are eventually noticed by local farmers and a hunt ensues. The situation escalates when a newspaper reporter gets wind of the dog’s escape and inflates the story to bigger proportions when suggesting that the dogs may have contracted an experimental strain of bubonic plague during their breakout attempt. This, and the desperate actions taken by the dogs, gets the British government, and ultimately, a battalion of soldiers involved in the situation.

In dealing with the human characters and their reaction to the undertakings of the Plague Dogs, Rosen takes a far different approach from that of the novel, offering up much of the novel’s deeper characterizations of its human characters. Characters such as Stephen Powell and the female version of the novel’s Digby Driver had fully realized conflicts and personalities. Here, they and the rest of the human characters have been reduced to figures with obscured faces and disembodied voices that foreshadow what is about to visually appear. Though the sacrifice of character development is not unwarranted here, it does somewhat dilute the strength of Adams’ message.

Regardless of what changes have been made to the portrayal of the two legged characters, the Plague Dogs themselves are wonderfully realized protagonists. The characters experience a simultaneous rise and fall that’s both heartbreaking and uplifting. Seeing the initially optimistic Snitter’s mind eaten away by his horrifying hallucinations and his hope betrayed by bad decisions and simple mistakes provides for an interesting and piercing conflict. Rowf on the other hand, undergoes an opposite growth of character. By the end of the film it is they who have traded roles. The tod too, proves to be a rather interesting protagonist. Though it is the intervention of the tod that keeps the dogs alive, it’s hard not to see certain malevolence in his in gaze as he watches the dogs kill to survive, almost as if encouraging a descent into an irredeemable, sinful state of being. While the novel handled this questioning of the limitations of innocence in the form of a biblical allegory, this angle has been all but wiped clean from the film adaptation. Nevertheless, Rosen keeps the central questions intact and functioning well within the context of his version of the story. The superbly realized emotional development of the characters culminates in a short, but deeply moving moment at the very end that highlights the very real sense of friendship between the dogs and the preservation of their inner nobility despite the damning actions they undertake throughout the film. This ending, which differentiates starkly in tone from the novel, is ultimately the better denouement. The novel’s ending is certainly more conclusive and upbeat, but I can’t help but find it a bit contrived. The film version throws away the contrivances of the novel and opts for a more ambiguous and darker route. Ultimately, the end result is indescribably powerful and escalates to untold levels of poignancy when Alan Price’s moving “Time and Tide” plays over the end credits.

Though I’d hesitate to slap on the title of “masterpiece”, Martin Rosen’s adaptation of The Plague Dogs is certainly worthy of standing against his superb “Watership Down” and earn a deserved status of animated classic.