[QUILL: THE LIFE OF A GUIDE DOG
screens Friday August 17th at 5:30 pm and Saturday August 18th at
7:00 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
In the tradition of OLD YELLER
and other kid's movies that will tear your heart out and stomp on it
comes QUILL: THE LIFE OF A GUIDE DOG.
Although QUILL is in
most regards a family friendly film, it bears mentioning that the
subtitles may not go over well with some kids (or their parents for
that matter). And then there's the straightforward way it deals with
tragedies of both the human and canine variety. There's certainly
nothing inappropriate for kids here, but parents may want to consider
whether their children are emotionally able to deal with some pretty
sad stuff. Now with that out of the way, on to the merits of the film
itself.
QUILL is
based on the true story of a seeing eye dog in Japan that begins with
the birth of the titular pup and follows him through all the stages
of his early growth, training, placement with a blind person, and
beyond. That allows viewers to get some idea of the work that goes
into training a guide dog and the way that training pays off for the
person the dog is assigned to. In addition, the film includes an
interesting human story via Quill's owner, Mr. Watanabe (Kaoru
Kobayashi).
