The Dog Who Stopped the War (1984)

The Dog Who Stopped the War (1984)

Directed by: André Mélançon

Starring: Cédric Jourde, Marie-Pierre A. D’Amour, Julien Elie

This is a French-Canadian family film. Say that last sentence out loud. Isn’t it just really fun to say? Well, SAVOR that fleeting joy, because this is a movie about a dog dying!

During the Christmas break, a group of kids decides to split into two armies and play war. One side builds a huge snow fort, and the other side tries to take it from them. There are some analogies about actual war in there, but mostly it was kids playing a game. Then one of the kids’ dog fucking dies and they all learn a life lesson that happiness sucks. Then they die. Eventually, I’m sure.

This was honestly not that bad of a movie up until the dog dies out of nowhere to end the thing. The child actors were pretty decent (although it’s hard to tell because the version I saw was a TERRIBLE English dub, so they were pretty bad to begin with), but what was really interesting about the thing was how the characters reacted to things, and it was very believably childlike. Maybe I’ve just been watching too many dumb action movies, but I’m not used to seeing kids act like kids do in movies.