My Life as a Dog

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My Life as a Dog
Directed by Lasse Hallström
Produced by Waldemar Bergendahl
Written by Lasse Hallström
Reidar Jönsson
Brasse Brännström
Per Berglund
Starring Anton Glanzelius
Tomas von Brömssen
Distributed by AB Svensk Filmindustri
Release date(s) Flag of Sweden 12 December 1985
Flag of the United States 24 March 1987
Running time 101 min.
Language Swedish
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

My Life as a Dog (Swedish: Mitt liv som hund) is a 1985 Swedish film based on a novel by Reidar Jönsson. It tells the story of Ingemar, a young boy sent to live with relatives. The movie features Anton Glanzelius, Melinda Kinnaman and Tomas von Brömssen.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Mischievous 12-year-old Ingemar (Anton Ganzelius) gets into all sorts of trouble, which drives his mother (Anki Lidén) crazy, not knowing that she is terminally ill. When he and his older brother become too much for her, they are split up and sent to live with relatives. Ingemar ends up with his uncle Gunnar (von Brömssen) and his wife Ulla (Kicki Rundgren) in a small rural town in Småland.

There he encounters a variety of characters. Saga (Kinnaman), an assertive tomboy his own age, likes him, and shows it by beating him up in a boxing match. Among the more eccentric residents is Fransson (Magnus Rask), a man who continually fixes the roof of his house, and Mr. Arvidsson (Didrik Gustavsson), an old man living downstairs who gets Ingemar to read to him from a lingerie catalog.

Later, Ingemar is reunited with his family, but his mother soon takes a turn for the worse and is hospitalized. He and his brother go to stay with their uncle Sandberg (Leif Ericson) in the city, but his wife thinks the boy is crazy. After his mother passes away, he is sent back to Småland.

Mr. Arvidsson has died in the interim; Gunnar and Ulla now share the house with a large Greek family. Gunnar welcomes him and consoles him as best he can, but the house is so crowded, he has Ingemar live with Mrs. Arvidsson in another house. Meanwhile, Ingemar becomes the object of contention between Saga and another girl. When they start fighting over him, he grabs onto Saga's leg and starts barking like a dog. She becomes upset by his strange behavior and gets him into the boxing ring. During the bout, out of spite, she tells him that his beloved dog (which he had thought was in a kennel) was actually euthanized. This, along with his mother's death, is too much for him and he locks himself inside Gunnar's one-room "summer house" in the backyard. The time spent here forces Ingemar to reflect on the death of his mother, the loss of his dog and a changing world. Ingemar uses the experiences of others and of his own personal loss to reconcile a life which is sometimes tough.

The movie ends with the radio broadcast of a famous heavyweight championship boxing match, between Swede Ingemar Johansson and American Floyd Patterson. When Johansson wins, the whole town erupts with joy, but the now-reconciled Ingemar and Saga are fast asleep together on a couch.

Throughout the film, Ingemar tells himself over and over that it could have been worse, reciting several examples, such as a man who took a shortcut onto the field during a track meet and was killed by a javelin and the story of the dog Laika several times, the first creature sent into orbit by the Russians (without any way to get her back down).

[edit] The broken record

Uncle Gunnar’s favorite song, the Swedish version of I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts, was translated by comedian/musician Povel Ramel. The song was originally composed in 1944 by English songwriter Fred Heatherton. Versions or portions of this song are also sung in the films White Christmas, The Court Jester , I Could Go On Singing, and the Disney films The Jungle Book, The Lion King (by the Zazu character) and National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Ben Gates).

[edit] Awards

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Best Director and Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1987.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
The Assault		 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film
1988		 Succeeded by
Pelle the Conqueror
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