El SUENO DEL PERO (THE DOG’S DREAM)

Argentina, 2008, 90minutes, Colour.
Guillermo Ageneleni.
Directed by Paulo Pecora

El Sueno Del Pero is a poetic film. The director had made a number of short films and made a short feature on this theme, getting some financial help from the SIGNIS Post -Production Fund. He has expanded the story into a dreamlike film.

The film is also a mosaic, moving to different places, to different times. The central character is a writer. We see him in the countryside, alone (although there are scenes with his wife and family, presumably they have been killed tragically). He observes life in the countryside, tries to write, encounters a young boy, some adults who are brutal to the boy, an old man who dies. He participates in the funeral. He becomes friendly with the boy who reads the story that he is writing. The boy provides a voice-over – the story of human dreams, a dog’s dream, stories being told by the ever- flowing river. There are also sequences in Buenos Ares, drained in colour, the writer with block trying to write at home, packing up, leaving.

1. It is very difficult to piece the film together in chronological order. Rather, audiences will observe various facets of a character, leaving them parts of a puzzle? Have an emotional response as well as a sense response.

2. The activities of the writer, the beauty of the terrain, the symbols of the river, the children, the forests, the dogs. Ultimately, the dog discovers that his dream is that of a human dream.

3. The poetic nature of the film, a search for meaning, a search for identity?

4. The mosaic, the pieces, in terms of character and characteristics, the dogs, the flowing river, the countryside, the house, the author’s work, issues of death? Buenos Ares, the streets, houses, work?

5. The beauty in the river, the woods, the contrast with the city?

6. The title, the visuals, the humans, the dogs?

7. The man, his family, the scenes, their disappearance? In the city, alone, smoking, writing, block? The end, packing, the dog?

8. The man in the country, the house, pouring the oil to burn the house? His life, the boy, the men working, chopping the trees, beating the boy, the old man, his death, the boat and the coffin, the funeral, on the river, in the woods, dreams? Waking from dreams?

9. The voice-over of the boy, reading the story, the role of the dog, the dog’s dreams? The dog’s character, behaviour? The bonds between man and dog?

10. The mix of dreams, the dog being the man, awaking?

11. Themes of identity, life, life in pieces, memory, creativity?