QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

The word of Preacher Scott Larson (Morgan Derera) is to round up and kill all the dogs. He calls them big bad rodents and hammers into the community the necessity for the violent cleansing. Entering this strange milieu on the Canadian Prairies is Korean native Sonny (Jae-Hyun Kim), a skilled hunter and animal-whisperer. After the death of his wife, he immigrated to Canada with his teenage son Hajoon (Da-Nu Nam) and young daughter Hana (Sein Jin).

His hunting prowess and special relationship with animals, as well as his tragedy, ingratiates himself with Scott and his wife, Laura (Candyce Weir). Sonny, however, is both disappointed and frustrated in Hajoon’s failure to mimic the example of masculine strength he has set for his son, and the compassion he has for the dogs. Meanwhile, Hana struggles to understand her mother’s passing. She watches and listens to her father’s grief, who regularly talks to his late wife.

The surreal premise of dogs being exterminated has its roots in the pursuit of power and control. The so-called rodents are a boogeyman that Larson can weaponise to manipulate and control. And, of course, the community is united around their shared fear. It begs the question of how this fear, and the actions it compels, defines Larson and his tribe? Mongrels leaves us with unanswered questions when Yoo reduces this central premise to a Trojan Horse that smuggles in the film’s genuine thematic interests of grief, family and belonging. It’s an intriguing idea that goes nowhere, yet it’s likely audiences will push back against it being so casually discarded.

Is this a reflection of how the audience grasp onto plot details and begin constructing their own version of the film? Is it symbolic of the competition for control of the story between the director and their audience? If this is the case, one cannot help but question why this unique selling point of man’s violence against canines was pared back so dramatically? It’s an inexplicable decision, especially given that it takes courage and conviction to jettison an idea that can make a lasting impression. Should audiences not remember the film, they’re unlikely to forget this premise, much like Sam Fuller’s racist canine in White Dog (1982).

The premise is part of a broader story told across three chapters (God, Cowboy and Blonde), and one explanation for Yoo’s decision is that he sees it as a way to create a specific energy or vibe, in the same way that the locals wear cowboy hats, far from their iconographic homeland of the American West, and now places like Texas. In hindsight, it occurs to me that Yoo treats storytelling like a chef preparing a meal – combining flavours to create the taste of the dish. The ideological violence against dogs, cowboy hats, and the Korean migrants create a series of clashes, which release a specific sensibility or sense of feeling. The individual flavour of each ingredient isn’t important, it’s how the different ingredients compliment one another.

Mongrels refuses to conform. The familial drama of the grieving family, the tensions between Sonny and Hajoon, the intimate and sensitive relationship between the siblings who depend on one another, feels restrained. It could be misconstrued as indecisiveness by Yoo to take the film by the scruff of the neck. Neither the father and son’s relationship nor Hajoon’s coming of age asserts itself. It suggests the pivot away from the man versus canine conceit was the beginning of a trend. Mongrels wants to be everything at once, and to all intents and purposes is successful, but this isn’t achieved without a lingering tension.

The friction we instinctively sense is rooted in the way we emotionally feel our way through a film. Mongrels is neither a family nor a coming-of-age story. If Yoo were to put Sonny front and centre, then it would be a family story, or if he were to put Hajoon front and centre, it would be a coming of age. However, each of the three chapters that shifts from Sonny to Hajoon to Hana, are all part of the same thematic journey. The premise itself is not abandoned, instead it is folded into the narrative, and is an instigator for Sonny’s relationship with his son fracturing. It should be viewed as the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back – provoking the underlying tensions to reach breaking point.

This is a richly layered film, which almost runs the risk of being cluttered. One problem is that the three chapters are so closely interrelated that it becomes a contributing factor to the aforementioned friction. This aside, Yoo tells a story about the immigrant experience from the points-of-view of different generations and the conflict it provokes. The narrative is also a critique of the class system and transactional human relationships, or as Sonny says to Hajoon, it’s about the chains of self-interest, or preservation.

As an emotional film, Mongrels is effective. It’s a pleasure to spend time with the cast of characters, especially Hajoon, whose sensitive, gentle and kind aura affects us. A strength of the film is that Yoo understands some films need to explain themselves, while the purpose of others is to be a conversation starter. Mongrels leans into the latter. Yoo empowers his audience to co-author the conversation with his subtlety towards themes and ideas, until he wavers and succumbs to sentimentality. Despite its shortcomings, Mongrels remains a beautiful and affecting film.

Mongrels is in the First Feature Competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.