THE HEART OF THE BEAST is first and foremost designed for those of us who understand that on the level of loyalty and affection in its purest and most unselfish form, dogs are better than we are. They just are. I’m not sure we deserve them, but here is a film that they deserve.
The dog is Odin, played by four German Shepherds who each deserve an Oscar®. He, like his companion (master is not the correct term for this relationship), James (Brad Pitt) is retired Special Operations Forces and scarred by the PTSD of combat. It is Odin who has the nightmares, though, and James who gently talks him through waking from them. They are also loners, and as we meet them James is taking his seaplane to a remote but picturesque lake in Alaska. Did I say beautiful? It is the stuff of reverie with snow-capped mountains and a lake that is like glass reflecting the wonders of nature. Or as James puts it in the first words spoken in the film, “It doesn’t suck, Odin.”
James is the laconic type, and Pitt makes that clear without needing the Trojan helmet tattooed on one of his biceps. He is a sensitive man, given to birdwatching (with a journal) and sketching the wildlife, and Odin, that he sees around him. The bond with Odin is deep, and there is no room for anyone else as the bearded stranger (J.K. Simmons) discovers when he comes upon their camp. An uncomfortable greeting slowly gives way to Belgian beer and the sort of open conversation that you can have with a stranger in the middle of nowhere knowing your paths will probably never cross again.
David Ayer has a gift for these small moments that are deeply meaningful. There is a deceptive simplicity as the campfire crackles, that makes the offer of a beer into a monumental gesture. He has an equal gift for the harrowing trek through the wilderness that James and Odin undergo when their plane crashes during a medical emergency on their way home. What was originally a bucolic reprieve from humanity in serene solitude is instantly transformed into nature red in tooth and claw, where the 50+ miles they have to cross is a different kind of battlefield populated with residents that do not respect humans as the top of the food chain. We are not in THE REVENANT territory, but it is a near thing, with wolves that hunt in eerily organized packs, and terrain that is indifferent to the injuries it causes James and Odin to sustain. The plane crash, shown in detail from sky to underwater, is just the start of several sequences where death is imminent, almost eager to take the travelers and only seeing Odin at the start of the film staring down a pickup truck before the flashback to how he got there gives us any reassurance that at least he will survive.
A grizzled Pitt delivers an introspective performance of great depth and judicious care in revealing the psychic wounds that war has inflicted on his character. The flashbacks, colored with sepia like dried blood, are not so numerous as to lose their impact as they explain the trauma both he and Odin suffered without exploiting it with sensationalism. The palpable bond he has with Uber II, Ryker, and Zika, and Hondo as Odin transcends the typical dog-human relationship. Their interactions have such a palpable empathy that it is no stretch to view their interactions not as James talking to himself with Odin as the audience, but instead a rich dialogue with nuance and even humor. They are equals and they are pals. When I say that Odin has the thousand-yard stare of a PTSD survivor, it is no exaggeration, Neither is the idea that an injured James would risk death to bring up medical supplies and survival gear from a lake bottom in order to save Odin.
THE HEART OF THE BEAST is not for the faint, ahem, of heart. It is a brutal film about stakes that are impossibly high and consequences that are staggering. But it is also about that transcendent bond and it is a powerful thing that makes this film epic.
Your Thoughts?