My review.

Hounddog (2008, Deborah Kampmeier)

Why do actresses always seem to give their best performances in middling downer pieces that mistake unceasing emotional anguish for worthwhile storytelling? Like Sleepwalking earlier this year (a film in which Fanning's major contemporary, AnnaSophia Robb, gets abandoned by her mother, lives in squalor with her uncle and is continually assaulted by her grandfather), Hounddog is another in a long line of movies featuring desolate landscapes, monotone color schemes and a dirtied-up pretty girl protagonist getting *beep* on by life.

Here it's Lewellen (Fanning), a waifish twelve-year-old blonde in an undefined southern town in the 1950s. Actually, it's more like the personification of every ethos and stereotype of the south known to man. It's "the South!", capital S, exclamation point. It features giant, pronounced vegetation, old trucks, wooden shacks, hot temperatures, tall grass, all manner of spiritual metaphors, thick twangy accents, endless acoustic blues, and yes, even hound dogs. The cast of characters into this is the same old stuff. The local po' boy Buddy (Cody Hanford), the drunk daddy (David Morse), the troubled Stranger Lady (that's what she's credited as, by the way; Robin Wright Penn), the harried grandmother (Piper Laurie), hell, even the Magical Negro Charles (Afemo Omilami). Almost none of these characters are given even a semblance of reality, despite the talented actors involved. Morse does nothing but act silly in a bad wig, Penn and Laurie are developed so slightly that they could wear giant sandwich boards denoting what they represent. Jill Scott even makes a (looong) cameo as Big Momma Thornton, randomly enough. But in the end, only two actors really take their characters and make something of themselves. Dakota Fanning is, once again, spectacular, endowing her foundling Job with both an robust appeal in the pre-you-know-what scenes, and a lacerated soul in the post- scenes. Impressively, the other person to acquit themselves is Afemo Omilami, who imbues his mystical Mongoloid with so much life that his vague spiritual catch-alls almost ring true, and the two of them together nearly make the hollow denouement seem like it means something.

But, of course, if you've heard of Hounddog, the only reason you know anything about it is That Scene. The film entered the public consciousness once it played at Sundance, becoming known as "that movie where Dakota Fanning gets raped", and like all instances where a hubbub is made about a cinematic scene of infamy, it's almost completely unearned. In fact, the rape scene is probably the most restrained scene in the entire film: it lasts a grand total of about twenty seconds, is in almost complete shadow, and never leaves Fanning's upper shoulders. It's the rest of the film that made me feel uncomfortable, as she spends much of the film in her underwear, and not only does it come off as unnecessary, but the camera always seems to be leering at her as it finds more excuses to get her in her skivvies. Throughout the film, Hounddog continually threatens to become "Figure out who's going to rape the little blonde girl", but I ended up being so taken with with Fanning's performance that it carried me through a good portion of the film's blase martyrdom.

The film is atmospheric and attractively filmed, but this setting is done so often that even the successful execution of local color is a cliche in itself. It still works in several spots, and it is much preferable to what most of the films of this ilk do, which is bleed the color out of the picture and set it in the dead of winter. The two films of which I was most reminded pertaining to tone were David Gordon Green's George Washington and Craig Brewer's Black Snake Moan, two pictures that also deal with spiritual redemption with a black protagonist in the American South, but with substantially more success. George Washington feels overtly genuine in its atmosphere, and considering its director's Little Rock home town, I'd say there's a reason for it. Black Snake Moan feels a little more artificial (although its director is Virginian), but succeeds because of the strength of its characterization for major and minor characters, taking stigmatized stereotypes (the God-fearing old black man and the morally-lacking young white girl) and investing them with humanity, and its musical finale was cathartic in exactly the way it wants to be.

I can't find where Deborah Kampmeier was born, but Hounddog certainly feels like an outsider's approximation of what the South "is", as well as what broken-home strife feels like. The film is carried through its one hundred minutes on the strength of its centerpiece, and Fanning pushes it in "decent" territory. I was never bored or in agony as to when it would end, it just simply "was", very middle-of-the-road, and this, I'll give it the middle of the road score.

[Grade: 6/10 (C+) / #42 (of 108) of 2008]