A picture of Slovakia’s “leader” Josef Tiso hangs on grandma’s wall and “No entry for gypsies” stands next to the pub door. Inside skinheads sit at bare tables and talk about the stuff skinheads always talk about: Those at the top don’t take care of their own people but they have money for strangers. Mira Fornay’s film MY DOG KILLER paints a portrait of a rural Slovakia where xenophobia and neo-fascism defines everyday life.
The film MY DOG KILLER is a day in the life of an 18-year old skinhead Marko. Early in the morning he goes out to train his pit bull dog, Killer. The dog is Marko’s only way into a group of skinheads. Marko is under pressure from all sides. His father is broke and is forced to sell the house he owns together with his estranged wife, Marko’s mother. To make the sale, Marko finds his mother and gets her signature. She left the family years before and now has an eight-year old son from a relationship with a Romany man. Marko’s skinhead friend can’t know about his half-brother but the boy is constantly following him around. Catastrophe unfolds.
Fornay goes for forceful realism in her use of amateur actors, including skinheads from the area, and sinister night scenes shot with natural light. When grandma dances to a Slovakian folk song under a picture of the war criminal Tiso, this may be a sign that history is repeating itself. However MY DOG KILLER doesn’t offer any simple explanations to the issues at hand in this film. As Mia Fornay said in an interview with the East European Film Bulletin: “I’m not a sociologist or a anthropologist. I only observe.”

Tom Dorow (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Carla McDougall