# Dog of Flanders, A (1999)

### reviewed by
Jon Popick

PLANET SICK-BOY: http://www.sick-boy.com

The darkest children's film since the Babe sequel, A Dog of Flanders is an early 19th century Belgian story of arson, animal cruelty, children born out of wedlock, drinking, and corruption. It has little to do with the titular dog, but instead concentrates on a young boy's quest to become the next big thing in the northern European art world. It is not – I repeat – not about a new dog for Bart's neighbors Rod and Todd.

The boy is Nello, a lad whose mother was lost to a blinding snowstorm when he was two (nobody knows who his father is). Raised by his weary, dirt poor grandfather Jehan Daas (Jack Warden, Dirty Work), Nello helps out by running milk into town everyday. Like his mother, Nello (played here by Jesse James, Message in a Bottle, who appears to be the missing Hanson brother) also has a talent for sketching with charcoal. One day, he finds a large Bouvier des Flanders – a breed of hard working dog – that was beaten and left for dead in the woods near Nello's home. Naming him Patrasche (his mother's middle name), Nello nurses the bear-like pooch back to health and Patrasche is soon helping the boy with his milk runs.

Flash to a few years later, where Nello (now played by Jeremy James Kissner, the young Finn from Great Expectations and a dead ringer for Leelee Sobieski's younger brother) is coached by a local artist named Michel LaGrande (Jon Voight, Varsity Blues). LaGrande takes Nello to see a work done by another great local artist named Peter Paul Rubens. At first, I thought this was a cross between the guy who invented the Mounds bar and Pee-Wee Herman. But it turns out that LaGrande meant the Belgian Flemish artist from the 1600s and convinces Nello to enter the `Junior Rubens' art contest open to local youth.

Nello's best friend Aloise (Madylin Sweeten, Everybody Loves Raymond) models for Nello's pieces, despite her father's warnings to keep away from his daughter, especially after Nello is blamed for torching his flour mill. The two children still manage to sneak off to a circus, where they share their first kiss and a dance straight from Titanic.

Despite the film's high body count and It's a Wonderful Life-ish ending (where Nello almost meets the same Little Match Girl fate as his mother), Flanders is a warmly glowing picture. Gritty costumer Beatrix Aruna Pasztor, who worked on the last six Gus van Sant films, and cinematographer Walther van den Ende (The Eighth Day) both deserve special recognition. The small town's center is reminiscent of Jude, with its main character seeming to be threatened by the heavy stones that constitute just about everything in sight.

Based on a popular children's story, Flanders is adapted and directed by Kevin Brodie (Treacherous), with television veteran Robert Singer helping script this film version. The ideas in the film seem a little scattered – Warden disappears for about 45 minutes in the middle - and runs a bit long. It seems to not know where it's going or care how long it takes to get there, but instead concentrates on looking good – which isn't a bad thing at all. (1:40 - PG for more violence than you would ordinarily find in a children's film, as well as many deaths)

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