Red Dog

Review By Brendan Paholski

Red Dog (the book)

Red Dog covers the life story of a Red Cloud Kelpie , in Western Australia between 1971 and 1979. When the story opens, his owners are Jack and Maureen Collins. At a barbecue Tally Ho (his original name in the story) doesn’t return to his owners , and he goes away.

John becomes his new owner. Red Dog and the men from the Hamersley Iron Transport section get to know each other after John the driver adopts him. John becomes the only person to whom Red Dog truly belongs. As Dampier grows, more people begin to befriend Red Dog. Nancy and Patsy are two characters who come into the story, as a result of one of them noticing that Red Dog has been shot. Nancy calls John, and he and his friends decide to stop work so they can save Red Dog. In the finale to part one, John has an accident while riding on his motorbike.

Part two of the book sees Red Dog looking for John. His journey takes him to a caravan park where Nancy has Red Cat. Red Dog and Red Cat do not initially get on well. The caravan park has a “no dogs” policy, so when Red Dog stays with Nancy, the park’s caretakers, the Cribbages, decide to kick Nancy out. The rest of the town objects to this. The last journey tells of Red Dog’s untimely end .

The book is of an episodic nature (as it surely must be), but hangs together well. Occasionally the dialogue is a little awkward, where some conversations/expressions seem to lack verisimilitude.

The book also includes a number of Australian terms in a glossary.However, describing someone as a dag doesn’t make them “revolting”, as this list would have it, but merely quirky or eccentric. Have a look at the list and have a good chuckle.

Red Dog (the film)

The film opens when a truck driver on long-haul delivery walks into a bar. Instead of the convivial atmosphere one might expect, he encounters gloom, as Red Dog (played by Koko) has been poisoned. The entire Pilbara region knows the dog, and is deeply upset at his situation. The worried expression of the publican)Noah Taylor) says it all. Red Dog may not make it through the night.

In the course of the next few hours, people flock to the bar to find out the prognosis and the hound's situation. All have tales to tell about the dog to the truckie (Luke Ford) about their relationship with the dog.Red Dog has clearly had a busy life, and as the narrative torch is passed around the bar, various events in Red Dog's life are recreated.

This is a well told tale, albeit of an episodic nature. The direction ( by Kriv Stenders) is exceptionally good, and the cinematography of the Pilbara region is not be understated.

The other remarkable thing about the movie is the soundtrack: songs from the Seventies (the story is based on events from 1971 to 1979) including Way Out West (The Dingoes), Bom Bom (Daddy Cool) , Stumblin’ in (Suzi Quatro / Smokie) and Rose Tattoo’s We Can’t Be Beaten truly make the story .

The film has some delightfully quirky scenes (betting on how fast Red Dog eats a can of dog food), and manages to synthesize pathos with humour at precisely the right pace.

By the way, check out Koko’s screentest.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Su66nlzKC0

Comparing book and film

When he was in Karatha in 1998 for a literary dinner, Louis de Bernieres discovered the statue of Red Dog outside Dampier. Intrigued, he set about researching the story. The result was the book Red Dog, published in 2001. The film found its star (Koko) in 2009.

De Bernieres took parts of the real story and dressed them up a little to make what would have been a series of random tales a cohesive story. Thus the film achieves this as well, albeit with a few subtle changes. John (a part-Maori in the book ) becomes an American in the film. The film also uses a well-worn technique (a stranger comes to town), to retell part of Red Dog's tale.

Both book and film suffer from an overuse of cliche, whether in dialogue or in action (the final Red Dog/Red cat fight is a prime example in the film) and some readers will find some odd expressions and sentence structure in the book. In the film, there is definitely tension between the real and the "hyper-real" in the dialogue.

Some episodes from the book are excised from the film , but those which are included are inspired, including any involving the Cribbages.

Overall, Red Dog's story probably works better as a film, where there is more scope for a true but "tall"story.