If there is a dispute in your household regarding whether a big furry dog is allowed to sleep in the bed… Togo is the movie for you! This is a fantastic (in all senses of the word) dramatization of the 1925 dog team relay that brought diphtheria antitoxin serum to Nome.
The best part, from my point of view, is that the growth of a character (and in every Hollywood movie, of course, someone has to grow!) is demonstrated by abandonment of a previous objection to a dog sleeping in the (humans’) bed.
Recommended if you’ve got a Disney+ subscription. (Does it qualify as “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life,” as Michelle Obama said of Hamilton? Maybe not, but it has Arctic dogs and, at least when presented on a TV, it holds the viewer’s attention much better than Hamilton.)
Related:
- “‘Togo’ Creators Tapped Century-Old Still Photo Process For Film’s Unique Look” (Forbes)
- everything was filmed in Canada
- Hollywood says it is okay to be racist, sexist, and anti-LGBTQIA+ half the time (the movie would be ineligible for an Academy Award under the new victimhood quotas. It was mostly white males on screen. Dogs appeared in a diversity of hues, but none of the dogs seemed to identify as LGBTQIA+)
For the sake of balance, here is one aspect of the sled dogs’ contribution to human endeavor that is unlikely to be featured in a Disney production:
“If we had entertained the slightest doubt of the quality of the meat, this vanished instantly on the first trial. The meat was excellent, quite excellent, and one cutlet after another disappeared with lightning-like rapidity. I must admit that they would have lost nothing by being a little more tender, but one must not expect too much of a dog. At this first meal I finished five cutlets myself, and looked in vain in the pot for more. Wisting [the cook] appeared not to have reckoned on such a brisk demand.”
– from Roald Amundsen’s account of his polar expedition of 1910-12.
I love the visual effects discussion in Forbes. This is really what all the image processing technology has done to benefit filmmaking: in the hands someone who loves the film and the medium, knows the history and what they’re trying to achieve, there’s never been a better time.
Here’s the non-Disney, harsh reality for sled dogs who eat lots of food and require lots of exercise: “The 100 dogs were shot dead over two days after an expected post-Olympics boon in dogsledding business at an adventure company didn’t pan out.”
Must be a hit with golden retrievers. Thought it was a bit bland, but all movies try to hit an unattainable level of political correctness. Couldn’t figure out how a virus could shut down a town.