Bombon (film)

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Bombón (el Perro), Carlos Sorín's 2005 film, set in Patagonia, finds an unemployed man have his luck change after being given a Dogo Argentino dog for a good turn, and this fine specimen is shown in exhibitions.

Coco, the main character, is first seen trying to sell knives to a group of oil workers. He is obviously a skilled craftsman, but the knives are too expensive for them. In fact, throughout the entire film, he never manages to sell a single knife, but ends up giving two away: one to a security guard as a bribe, and one to a cabaret singer he meets on his journey.

It is apparent that Coco is down on his luck. He lives in a cramped apartment with his daughter and her children. Fifty-something, it looks increasingly unlikely he will get another job. What he really wants is to work in a Petrol Station, and during the first part of the film he is seen enquiring after such jobs. Coco is a good natured man, despite his ill-luck, and he is seen helping a woman on the road whose car has broken down. This good deed leads to him being given an Argentine Dogo as a gift. The dog is a pedigree and the woman supplies him with all the documents. Coco is totally bemused, but keeps the dog. His daughter asks him to choose- her or the dog. He chooses to keep the dog. The film now becomes a road movie. Coco calls the dog "Lechien" mistakenly believing that this is his name, in fact it is "the dog" in French and was written on his kennel. Eventually Coco realises the dog is incongruously called "Bombon"

From the moment he takes the dog Coco's luck begins to change. People ask him to guard buildings with the dog; a chance meeting with the Bank Manager leads him to Walter, a trainer. Walter assures him that the dog is pure gold.

After the dog wins third prize at a dog show an eager Walter begins to make arrangements to have him put out to stud, this promises to be lucrative for them both, but the unfortunate dog is unable to perform. Disillusioned, Walter takes the dog back to his ranch, and advises Coco to get settled somewhere and return for the dog later on. But Coco feels lost without the dog, and returns to Walter's only to find the dog has escaped. On finding him again, Coco sets off into an uncertain future with two young hitchhikers in tow.

THEMES----

The film is a gentle drama about a man and a dog. However there is a underlying sense of anxiety, as the viewer fears for both the dog, Bombon, and the man. The dog, because he is so valuable and in danger of getting stolen; the man because he is so good- natured and trusting, he may come to some - as yet unseen- harm . The landscape itself is harsh, bleak and unforgiving. There is a common bond of impotence between man and dog. The dog cannot mount any female, and the man has not lived with his wife for 20 years. He becomes reluctant when the cabaret singer shows an interest in him. The characters are ordinary people, Coco a fiftyish, scruffy man, Walter is fat and the cabaret singer plain, but the film conveys that they have a certain beauty in their actions and deeds. In one of the final scenes, all the themes seem to come together as Coco searches outside a brick factory for Bombon, with the dust swirling and the sun beating down. Increasingly anxious, he suddenly finds Bombon, happily mounting a mongrel bitch. Coco's face, which has for much of the film shown a desolation and mute acceptance of his fate, now breaks into a smile that dispels all our anxiety and we know they are going to be all right.