The Power Of the Dog (Explained) - Review I Ending Themes Symbols

[Music] so either you will really hate this movie or you'd want to watch it twice let me explain so the power of the dog is a 2021 western drama film written by jane campion now jane campion uh really is a pioneer when it comes to a woman director she's won a lot of awards as well now jane camping i think has done a brilliant job here she is a celebrated new zealand director when i watch this movie that's the feeling i got that this feels like a really detailed book and whenever a movie feels like a book and it is from a book that's always a good sign i certainly feel like i'd want to watch it again because i don't think i caught everything now well if i were to give my review of it i would definitely say that this is not a movie for everyone if you're coming in expecting a really flashy movie or an even a lot of events with gunfights etc that's not what you're going to find here if you want a movie that makes you think if you want a movie that is brilliant in its characterization uh if you want to see performances with multiple layers you know a movie that takes this audience as intelligent human beings and wants you to see the hidden subtle things or watch it with that kind of eye you will find it rather enjoyable so this would be my verdict is that it's definitely a four out of five for me but it's an interesting movie in the sense it's a movie that made me think a lot after the movie and now the more i think about it the more i tend to appreciate the movie now talking about the themes in this movie um i think the characters really exemplified the themes that the director was trying to put across and of course it must have been there in the original book by thomas savage as well so let me quickly run through some of the themes i noticed that were beautifully placed in if you're looking for it number one is the question of masculinity right what is masculinity perhaps quote unquote toxic masculinity aggressive masculinity exemplified by phil's character who is cruel who is rough who really shows hatred towards anything softer or anything even feminine so he works with his hands physical strength you clearly see that in phil and then on the other hand you see a different kind of strength from his brother who is a lot more diplomatic right and you see his strength is being social with people right he can rub shoulders with people who make decisions the governors the mayors and so his social skill is his strength a strength that is very different from possibly both of these is exemplified by peter and that is again brilliantly shown by the actor right in the most subtle ways he shows you glimpses of that kind of strength which phil couldn't possibly understand and his strength of peter's strength is the strength of a man that thinks a lot that calculates uh a thinking man's strength in many ways which is not brute force but it is planning it is thinking things through doing things in a smart way to remove obstacles as a second theme that we can talk about is loneliness and you can see loneliness in phil's life from having lost his partner his mentor possibly his lover bronco in the past and how he's reeling from that loss and so at present he's extremely lonely and how does he deal with that loneliness once again he takes it out on other people in a negative way and of course he possibly finds meaning in the work he does as a ranch owner and he really you know throws himself to that now you see loneliness from rose who's dealing with possibly a broken marriage or a husband who's suicided and maybe even a loss of her identity or the skills that she had as a musician in the past and today she's doing something that is just making ends meet but she deals with it again with alcohol if she comes across something that makes her anxious you can see her turn towards alcohol even in george who often times he has his brother but you see there is something missing in him and at one point he even shouts a few tears because he's so happy that he found rose so he deals with loneliness by allowing himself to open up to find love another theme is building broken relationships and you can see phil again starting with phil although he probably felt he cannot rebuild relationship he can only hold on to the past memories that he has with his lover and mentor and all of that but then towards the very end you can see he's allowing himself to open up to peter there's that theme of mending broken relationships of course rose having lost her husband now finds a new lover in a new husband heaven that i find interesting there's a theme of kindness uh as well the question of you know what does it mean to be kind and uh at times can you kill or remove an obstacle even if it's a person for the sake of saving someone you love and peter definitely does that he removes the tormentor or the dog that hounds his mother that is an act of kindness towards his mother right you also see peter uh you know as a surgeon he wants to be a doctor and a surgeon so you do still need to be cold enough to be able to rip apart bodies and and look at organs and handle blood uh but at the same time you do that in order to save lives you do that to learn so that you can save lives in the future and there are several pretty brilliant symbols in the movie that lends itself to character development that lends itself to the overarching themes that the movie is trying to juggle together right so one of the symbols that you can see is gloves and gloves and the lack of gloves so protection versus no protection right protection can be uh from toxic relationships from things that can harm you or hurt you and you see that gloves repeatedly here and there with certain characters ultimately what led to the demise of phil is not wearing gloves he has an open wound and he's trying to continue working with that open wound whereas you see peter often use gloves when he's handling things right you also see rose get a pair of gloves that she wears right before she faints and then she refuses to take it off you can kind of see that as protection she you know wears that and falls asleep so i think that's a brilliant use of a symbol another symbol i noticed is shadows uh what is hidden in what comes to light there's multiple themes around that at one point you can see uh phil in some ways challenging peter to look at just out there all these mountains what do you notice and phil is able to notice rather peter is able to notice there's a barking dog right in the shadows that's formed talking about hidden a lot of these characters especially phil he has something to hide namely his sexuality but he's always trying to expose or bring to light other people's secrets in some ways right he's trying to expose his brother for having that relationship with rose he says that basically he's going to write to their mother and let them know that you know they've run off or something like that but george deals with it differently by bringing it to life he says i married him another thing he's he tries to expose rose's uh secret alcoholism right her drinking problem and befriending peter later on and trying to be nice to him and build this new relationship is also another form of hiding right he wants his secret to be hidden so the only person that knows his secret about his identity uh as you know a gay man perhaps he wants to keep him as a friend lest peter goes and exposes him again spoiler alert but you see that peter ultimately deceives phil by pretending to be okay i want to be like you i want to come under your wings and and i want you to be my mentor i look up to you etc etc and makes them vulnerable just like the open wound and finally here is uh phil opening himself up to a new kind of relationship which at the end of the day peter makes sure that he gives phil a rawhide that is of a deceased animal with anthrax possibly right and he does that on purpose so that you know phil is able to touch it and ultimately die from it so when everyone else was able to see a man who is a bully who is scary who is cruel [Music] another symbol that is used is the piano now the piano and rose the piano is a source of torture and torment to rose again because one it makes a lot of noise in her restaurant and she kind of regrets even buying it because you have drunk people making noise on that a lot uh the second thing is um she goes into her new home and her new husband buys her grand piano and expects her to play uh beautiful music for his guests now she's it seems like she was some kind of a musician or had been a successful career in the past but of course it looks like she's no longer doing that it looks like she's just a widow trying to support her child by sort of running this small restaurant so it's a reminder of her past it's a reminder of what she could have been but she can no longer reach that right now so the other thing is with the paper rose that peter makes and then we find out that his mother's name is rose as well and i think that's a powerful imagery that's used there and of course phil is the one to make fun of that paper rose uh whereas peter is pretty proud of it he comes forth and he says i made it uh although you know the reaction from phil is to mock it and eventually even destroy it and i think that's a pretty interesting way to set the dynamic between these three characters that is rose peter and phil the last imagery that i tend to notice is how strands a rope is made out of straps a rope looks like it's really strong etc but at the end of the day it is made out of a whole bunch of strands so this imagery of strands this imagery of things that are rather fragile or delicate yet there's a different kind of strength to them and that is associated often with peter peter has this comb and he plays around with the teeth of the comb often right you see that image at the beginning of the movie towards the end as well phil on the other hand rope is always associated with fill uh it can mean a bunch of things but you can see how he's constantly taking things that seem delicate and forming them into the strong tight tough rope so i think that's a brilliant symbol that's used throughout the movie now these are my thoughts on the symbols some of the character and the themes that they bring out if you like movie analysis like this please consider subscribing to my channel and leave a thumbs up if you want to see more videos like these [Music]

Channel: Second Opinion

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Keywords: the power of the dog, the power of the dog review, the power of the dog explained, benedict cumberbatch, the power of the dog movie review, kirsten dunst, netflix december 2021, netflix movies

Id: Ba9UgH8iSRs

Length: 12min 29sec (749 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 09 2021