The Day the Dogs Disappeared (2018)

Directed by: Boris Kuijpers, Ruth Mellaerts | 21 minutes | short film, drama | Actors: Peter De Graef, Leen Diependaele, Mistral Guidotti, Lou Ottoy, Nico Sturm, Boris Van Severen

“Barking dogs seldom bite. It is the inaudible that we must fear!”
One day the dog of the apparently ordinary Haese family disappears. In a desperate attempt to find out what happened to the French bulldog, the family risks their beliefs. Gradually, everyday life turns into a paranoid search for the truth.

The opening scene of ‘The Day the Dogs Disappeared’ is quite exciting and will have you on the edge of your seat right away. The rest of the film, however, ensures that you sit back in the seat again. The vague fear that you feel to some extent in the beginning should actually become more oppressive, instead of weakening. It is clear that directors Kuijpers and Mellaerts want to provoke questions and absolutely do not want to offer the answers on a silver platter. That does not necessarily have to be negative, as long as you are given certain handles. Unfortunately they are missing here and there.

‘The Day the Dogs Disappeared’ gets more and more supernatural phenomena as the film progresses. The film goes in different directions, but constantly changes its course. Two – at first sight – innocent state security agents, dressed in sugar-pink suits, make their entrance. It doesn’t take long for them to wrap the family around their fingers and play them off against each other. From that moment on, the real paranoia arises in the family, but also the confusion in the viewer. The men don’t seem to belong in the setting, but they also don’t know how to alienate enough to make it catchy again.

What must be said is that ‘The Day the Dogs Disappeared’ is beautifully designed and manages to sketch a very exciting ambiance with its penetrating images. The concept is certainly not bad and may even have potential for a feature film. Perhaps the directors wanted to tell too much in too short a time.