PUP RALLY

Now streaming:

Free Puppies!--The directors of this documentary, Samantha Wishman and Christina Thomas, are yankees, from New York and Philadelphia respectively, chronicling a little-reported story from the American rural South: A lack of resources for animal welfare. The filmmakers seem struck by the degree to which dogs in Dixie are neglected and allowed to breed, and the frequency with which their offspring are abandoned, often on a roadside in a box marked "FREE PUPPIES!"

But Wishman and Thomas also find heroes: The focus is on a few women in Dade County in northern Georgia who work quixotically to rescue, spay, neuter, foster and find adoptive homes for these strays. They do this work seemingly at their own expense, with very little help from the local government--no funds for a shelter, veterinary care, etc. This problem is hardly confined below the Mason-Dixon line, of course, but conditions there seem particularly bad.

The most vividly presented of these women is the voluble and energetic Monda Wooten, who runs a discount flooring business in the town of Trenton when she can squeeze it in between looking after strays and browbeating her snickering colleagues on the City Commission to prioritize building a shelter. She and her friends Ann Brown and Ruth Smith, among others, seem to live in a constant, self-imposed on-call state, taking calls about strays or other imperiled animals as they drive around, shlepping dogs to low-cost spay and neuter clinics, negotiating with dog hoarders, helping facilitate a huge diaspora of strays to adopters in the North, and more.

I was braced for a miserable time going into this one, but while the movie's implications, both cultural and logistical, are certainly sad, it's not depressing to watch. In part this is because it's full of adorable dogs; we, of course, mostly get to see the luckier ones. But it's also because the women's unhesitating dedication and courage are inspirational, and their characters are funny and fascinating.

Though it isn't stated explicitly, Monda comes across like a Trumper (I found a picture of her and other local politicians in the Dade County Sentinel posing with Marjorie Taylor Greene, in whose congressional district Trenton is located). At one point Monda mentions that their shared passion for dogs is just about all that she and Ann--who wears a peace sign on her shirt--have in common. The fact that, in our supposedly hopelessly polarized society, they're able to put aside their differences for the sake of this work is immensely cheering, both for dogs and for our nation.

That said, there's also a striking moment in which Monda explains, rather defensively, that when she takes a pregnant dog to a vet, she'll have the vet abort the puppies, on the grounds that it's better than bringing more mouths to feed into a world that won't care for them. She doesn't say whether she would extend this option to pregnant humans.

Two other documentaries, both short subjects about the plight of arctic animals, are available for free from The New Yorker; both are tough but worth your time...

Nuisance Bear--This wordless wonder, directed by Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden and running just under 14 minutes, shows a polar bear wandering around the outskirts of Churchill, Manitoba--famous as a stop for tourists to watch the creatures on their migratory route. Local officials, faceless in pickups and vans, chase the harried, unassuming beast away from town, while nearby kids in costume trick-or-treat, under police escort, in the icy streets. The soulful title bear is the only real character, and is entirely sympathetic.

Haulout--This one, directed by Evegnia Arbugaeva and Maxim Arbugaev and running less than a half-hour, has a human protagonist, Russian scientist Maxim Chakilev, keeping vigil in a cabin on a desolate stretch of Siberian beach. He's waiting for a "haulout," a mass beaching of sea mammals to rest during migration. Sure enough, one morning he wakes up and opens the cabin door to find himself surrounded...

...by tens of thousands of walruses. As a surreal image, this is worthy of Bunuel, and initially there's something whimsically appealing, almost cozy, about the idea of spending a day hemmed indoors by a sea of these lolling, snorting pinnipeds. But it's soon clear that this is not a healthy phenomenon; the animals have bunched on land in such numbers because of a lack of sea ice on which to rest, and the density is dangerous to them. What Chakilev finds after the walruses depart is appallingly sad and ominous, and the film is beautiful, haunting and heartbreaking.