The only thing i didn`t understand about this beautiful movie is: did the dog symbolize something? What did it mean in the movie? It appeared a few times like it was something strange and terrible. And then it appears in the end..Honestly, I don`t get it..I have a version that it is somehow connected to Sylvia because she and dog never met..
shareI don't think it was a symbol. In my opinion, it was only another Fabrizio's threatening weapons to torture Laura, and to demonstrate he was powerful and confident in the woods. He was tender and kind with Sylvia and that is why he never used the dog against her.
shareHe was "tender and kind" with Sylvia because he already had a victim, and Sylvia was his partner in bullying Laura.
The dog is a connection with nature. And as Fabrizio changes from Laura's best friend to a cruel bully, the nature also changes from marvelous, fascinating beauty of woods and hills to dangerous and dark caves and holes. The dog never attacks or hurts girls, but he is there as a watch-dog, to assure things keep going same direction: there is nothing that can help the victim.
I don't think that the dog has any special symbolic meaning, but the opening scene (that is surprising, and hard to understand the first time we see it) can later be explained as an announcement, hint of Fabrizio's weird character.
Also, we can conclude that Fabrizio lives in the cottage all the time (how? why?) with the dog as his only company, except during summer months with Laura; and all of us who know dogs have witnessed how cruel games dogs can play. Even their treatment of own puppies can sometimes look cruel and dangerous. So if Fabrizio's main or only playmate was a dog, it is no wonder that his own games (with Laura) gained more cruelty as years went by.
Yes. In fact, Fabrizio stopped being tender and kind with Sylvia when he lost his power over her. He suffered delusions of grandeur (the king stuff). And you are right, the opening scene is quite confusing. Maybe it was to say the boy was as vicious as the dog itself.
By the way, I don't think Fabrizio lived only with his dog. I think they all had their parents (negligent parents) but they are not shown on purpose, to focus the action on the three characters. It's particularly funny the scenes where you hear adults soft murmuring but you don't see adults talking. LOL
We are out of topic, but I'll reply on the second paragraph.
Unlike Sylvia, whose house we see, and Laure, whose house we don't see, but we know it is somewhere near on the edge of woods, and there are parents (because Laura mentions them several times), Fabrizio's cottage is in the middle of woods, with apparently no close contact to the world outside. And while we never see girls' homes from inside, we are allowed to see where and how Fabrizio lives, and it is obvious there is nobody else in there.
He is older than the girls and it is not impossible that he is an orphan that nobody misses, or a runaway from a disturbed family (both explaining his character) who didn't care or even felt relief when he left, so nobody was looking for him. The fact that Laura used to meet him years before might contradict this theory. Also, his parents might have been some weird lunatics living in woods that had no contact with the rest of the world and when they died the authorities had no information about their death; Fabrizio maybe wasn't even going to school, so no teachers, no social workers knew that there was a child in the woods. However, he still must have had someone to supply him food, clothes.
Another interesting point: if Laura's parents knew (and must have known) that she is playing with s friend, they obviously didn't care who he was. Otherwise they probably wouldn't be so peaceful to let her wander around all the time. If they were different kind of parents, they would also recognize changes in Laura's mood and behaving after bullying started. I wrote some lines about it in my comment about the movie.
Perhaps flashing back between the dog and the kids is a way of comparing the animalistic instincts and hunting nature in us all? Plus Iro the dog seemed to be Fabrizio's only family.
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