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Rating:
THE REVIEW
Starting from the story of the love for her beloved rat terrier, Lolabelle, who died in 2011, Laurie Anderson gradually and delicately ends up talking to us about herself, about her - we are convinced - special personality, both artistic and human, about the dramatic experiences of her childhood, and the difficult relationships with her mother.
Meditating on loss, death, love, and language, trying to draw from Buddhist concepts and citing, with extreme sobriety and detachment, the Tibetan Book of the Dead (a text describing the experiences the conscious soul lives after death), Ludwig Wittgenstein, David Foster Wallace (“Every love story is a ghost story”)…
The whole piece is constructed with great emotional intensity, from amateur 8-millimeter footage to which the author's own drawings are added, her comments (by her express wish, also in Italian), and moving minimal music, with pieces for solo violin, quartets, songs, and ambient electronics.
The film was presented and met with some favor at the 72nd Venice Film Festival in 2015.
The singular figure of the artist and woman Laurie Anderson, with a great career behind her, once again surprises and amazes.
In a current and modern way, almost classic or rather timeless.
The gem accompanying the closing credits is a piece by her husband Lou Reed - to whom the work is dedicated -, Turning Time Around, strongly desired by Anderson: “I thought it could be a wonderful thing for Lou to describe his definition of love, which embraces the image of time turning and moving in every direction…”
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Summary by Bot
Heart of a Dog is Laurie Anderson’s deeply emotional film reflecting on the loss of her dog Lolabelle and her own life experiences. Using experimental visuals and minimalist music, the film meditates on death, love, and language, drawing from Buddhist and philosophical influences. The documentary received acclaim at the Venice Film Festival and is dedicated to her late husband Lou Reed, whose song closes the work beautifully.Tracklist Lyrics Videos
01 Tell All the Animals (02:11)
02 A Different World (01:53)
03 Facebook (01:36)
04 The Lake (vocal version) (04:14)
05 A Story About a Story (05:56)
06 Animals Are Like People (02:16)
08 Flow (02:13)
09 Piano Lessons (03:00)
10 The West Village (01:42)
11 Lola Goes Blind (03:12)
12 The Lake (instrumental) (01:32)
13 Bring Her Some Flowers (02:07)
14 Dreaming of Life Before Birth (01:40)
15 The Bardo (08:24)
16 Life Lived Backwards (02:23)
17 The Cloud (02:12)
18 How to Feel Sad Without Being Sad (02:08)
19 Three Ghosts (02:29)
20 Iron Mountain (03:03)
21 Birth of Lola (02:19)
22 The Mother Meditation (01:11)
23 Phosphenes (00:48)
24 The Real World (01:17)
25 What If the Sky Froze? (01:54)
27 The Release of Love (01:42)
Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson is an American avant‑garde artist, composer, and performer known for blending spoken word, electronics, and multimedia. She broke through with O Superman and Big Science, created the epic United States cycle, and later wrote/directed the film Heart of a Dog.06 Reviews
