![]() I also enjoy Roger’s silly bromance with Pongo, and how it’s a quite bit stronger than your usual master / pet relationship between a man and his dog. Roger and Anita’s different temperaments compliment each other well, whether it’s Roger encouraging Anita to loosen up and have more fun, or Anita keeping her husband’s rashness in check – and the two of them have some loving chemistry. She’s a sensible, level-headed and pragmatic woman, who’s always quick to offer a differing opinion about how family matters should be handled. By contrast, his wife, Anita, is a prim and proper lady. He’s very passionate about his profession, and he can easily get lost in his work, but he can also be very brash and blokish in his leisure time. Pongo’s owner, Roger, is a musician, and a bit of loner, who’s married to his job. During the latter half of the film, the tension of their predicament is very thick and it’s always present, because the Dalmatians are always one wrong move away from being discovered and getting themselves and their children killed. ![]() In the second half of the film, Pongo and Perdita race halfway across Britain, fight off crazed humans to rescue their pups, and then they have to play cat and mouse games with them: trying to outwit the dognappers and stay one step ahead of them. It’s a refreshing change from Disney’s usual formula for couples at the time. Pongo and Perdita are parents for most of the movie, and the main conflict they face is the difficulties of parenthood, some humans threatening their family, and their love for their children being put to a grueling test. So I find it interesting that Pongo and Perdita have your standard Disney meet-cute in the first fifteen minutes and jump ahead to the babies phase, what should be their happily ever after, pretty quickly. Several classic Disney films follow that template, like “ Bambi” or “Lady and the Tramp”. Pongo’s mate, Perdita, isn’t characterized as strongly as he is, but she is a very warm, nurturing, fretful and attentive canine, to her owner and her pups.Ī pretty common Disney formula is for two characters to meet, fall in love, get married and have kids: the ideal outcome after they’ve overcome a series of challenges. As the film’s narrator, he provides a lot of wry, sassy commentary about a dog’s view of the world, and he’s easily the most animated character in the movie (check out the faces he makes when he learns he has fifteen puppies). He and his owner, Roger, are initially a pair of bored bachelors who have hit a dead-end in their lives, so Pongo decides to set his owner up with a woman, and by chance he meets his own soulmate in the process. The main protagonist of the film is a playful, loyal and protective British Dalmatian named Pongo. If it wasn’t for the kindness of strangers, our heroes almost certainly wouldn’t have survived. Canine solidarity across long distances is perhaps the most consistent theme in the movie, since the dogs Pongo and Perdita encounter (along with their families) help them to find their children, let them in their own homes for shelter and protection, and help them return home to London. The inner-workings of canine society (which humans will never understand) plays a massive role in this film, since Pongo and Perdita rely heavily on the Twilight bark – a system dogs have devised to send messages to each other across long distances the way humans would with telegrams – giving the whole film the sense of being a classical adventure. A major aspect of this movie is the relationship between humans and canines, how they compliment each other, what it’s like living besides one another, how dogs like to think of humans as being their pets instead of it being the other way around.īut while “Lady and the Tramp” told a pretty general story about the circle of life – growing up, balancing family matters, and finding love – “101 Dalmatians” is a much more specific kind of adventure, about dogs getting wrapped up in a human crime and dogs pulling off a rescue mission. ![]() As the second major dog movie Disney has done, in some ways “101 Dalmatians” feels like a spiritual successor to “ Lady And The Tramp“. After “Sleeping Beauty” failed to turn a profit, causing a major paradigm shift at Walt Disney Animation Studios, “101 Dalmatians” was the film that officially kicked off Disney’s dark age period, which would last for decades, while also being one of the highlights of that era. “101 Dalmatians”, adapted from a children’s novel of the same name by Dodie Smith, is one of several movies that Disney has produced over the years about dogs, man’s intrepid best friend.
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