Let all that you do be done in love.
– 1 Corinthians 16:14
Love is a many splendored thing
Love lifts us up where we belong
All you need is love!– “Elephant Love Medley,” Moulin Rouge
There are many songs and stories, poems and paintings, statues and films, made about love. Tales of affection and passion, of family and friendship, of sacrifice or selfishness that either bring people together or tear them apart. Actions done in the name of love aren’t always accomplished with a soft touch, leading to great pain and suffering. In the history of humanity, love is presented as a universal attribute, it’s the welding of it that changes lives and shapes borders. Written by Lauris Ābele (Troubled Minds), Raitis Ābele (Baltic Tribes), Ivo Briedis (Eden), and Harijs Grundmanis, with the Ābele Brothers directing, psychedelic horror thriller Dog of God (Dieva suns), having its world premiere in the Escape from Tribeca section of Tribeca Film Festival 2025, explores the weaponization of love to cudgel and control a populace, transforming natural feelings and emotions into shame with the only outlet being pain.
Einars Repše as Thiess in DOG OF GOD. Photo courtesy of Tritone Studio.
In seventeenth century Livonian village Zaube, discontent is brewing within the people. Priest Buckholz (Regnārs Vaivars) preaches of the dangers the persistent rain cautions of while decrying the drunkards who hang out in the local tavern as proliferating the degradation of the townspeople. Yet, for all of his blustering, Buckholz still finds himself enamored with tavern operator Neze (Agate Krista), even to the point of having his aid, Klibis (Jurģis Spulenieks), spy on her. However, whatever problems (real or imagined) Buckholz thinks are terrorizing his village, nothing could prepare him for the arrival of Thiess (Einars Repše), a man proclaiming himself a werewolf and an emissary of G-d himself, whose presence in Zaube changes everything.
Regnārs Vaivars as Priest Buckholz in DOG OF GOD. Photo courtesy of Tritone Studio.
There’s always been a strange line between faith that uplifts and faith that holds down, a fine liminal space which is defined solely by the people in charge. Buckholz is very clearly a hypocrite in more ways than one. The obvious is that he blames Neze for his own lust rather than himself (in clear violation of Matthew 5:28-29), the less so being his implementation of The Eucharist (holy communion) during services while condemning her use of natural alchemy. How is one labeled witchcraft? How is the other not labeled supernatural? How does one perspective become truth and the other lies? The Reform Jewish community this reviewer grew up in views our stories as parables mixed with history, lessons to be wrestled with and reinterpreted as time changes, not to be taken as truth. Here, Buckolz wields the love of G-d as a weapon that only he is worthy to hold, bringing down its full weight on those who he sees as inferior despite being incredibly weak himself. Unlike Neze, who uses her skills and knowledge to aid those in her community who are ill (as she does with someone who may well have the plague), Buckolz is solely concerned with the appearance of piety, the semblance of authority, and the visage of leadership. Of course, this also implies that Buckolz knows of his hypocrisy, which would suggest some kind of self-awareness; unfortunately, as portrayed by Vaivars (Lotus), Buckolz is the kind of weak-ass religious leader who can’t be bothered with introspection, only accusation. Thus, his version of love is control, a divine might that flies in the face of The Word itself (even if The Word is a touch on the controlling side depending on which version of which book you’re reading), whereas the love that Neze offers, while contractual as a healer, is still morally and ethically superior.
Agate Krista as Neze in DOG OF GOD. Photo courtesy of Tritone Studio.
If you view the trailer for Dog of God before watching the film, there’s a very specific and continually salacious bit of imagery throughout that one might take for perversion, if not just specifically kinky. This is partially true for the full feature, though not for the reasons one might think. There is nudity and exploration of sex, but the only thing that makes any of the inclusion “dirty” is within Buckolz and his interpretation. In a scene with Neze, a woman is unclothed in the woods, a client of her’s whom is seeking an ailment for a persistent infection, the treatment for which is out in nature. Context being what it is, there’s nothing sensual about the sequence beyond the appearance of a naked woman and being naked is not, in and of itself, sexual unless someone is taught that nudity is bad outside the confines of marriage and desiring someone is moral failing. There’s a false equivalence between nudity and sex with one not always equaling the other, yet there’s a persistent belief that it is and, therefore, creates a belief system in which the sheer act of being exposed is controversial. Look to the perspective of male versus female nudity as it relates to the nipple. Men can wander topless, but women cannot as if an exposed breast is not an exposed breast depending on gender of the person without the shirt. Just recently, a protest in Edinburgh took place in which a group of roughly 200 transwomen stood topless with their mouths taped to make a point against a recent ruling on the definition of a woman — a defiant act that requires anyone sharing videos or photos to make a determination on how to display the news as doing so would be guided by a limited binary view. God forbid a woman try to breastfed her child in public, a most natural evolutionary act, but by its mere connection to the nipple/breast, it’s deemed unlawful because somehow its sexual. According to whom and why have they not yet plucked out their eyes per the aforementioned Matthew verse? The point, if you will, is that the script by the collection of writers utilizes sex as an opposition position to Buckolz, but it’s not entirely devoid of its own moral failings thanks to Kristians Karelins’s Baron Klodt, who represents secular politics/ruling class, who is obsessed with sex due to a physical issue he possesses that prevents him from having intercourse long enough to have an heir. Much like Buckolz’s own obsessions turning godliness into perversions, so do Klodt’s, thereby placing Neze and the mysterious Thiess right in the middle, even if it means solving one person’s problems at the expense of another.
L-R: Madara Madi as Wunderbar Baroness and Kristians Karelins as Baron Klodt in DOG OF GOD. Photo courtesy of Tritone Studio.
What helps all of the above go down smooth for the audience is the utilization of rotoscoping to bring the world of Dog of God to life. This is a form of animation in which live-action performances are recorded and then draw over, frame-by-frame. This technique was used in Walt Disney classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and modern tales like Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly (2006), among others. While there’s a live-action version of Dog of God that could be made, the utilization of rotoscoping empowers the ideas within the narrative, the symbolism, to come alive in ways that live-action simply cannot achieve. In the opening sequence, a shirtless figure wearing a band around his head and dragging a chain walks toward a body of water that he’s able to spread like the Red Sea to reveal two dog legs rising from the water. The performer is Repše and the surrounding elements may very well be blue screen (as depicted in one photo of a different scene included within the press kit), but they could only be achieved through this means and not look abhorrently cheesy or distracting. Instead, evoking Heavy Metal (1981), one gets the sense they are about to embark on a trippy adventure from which the veil between reality and fantasy shall be razor thin. What happens next is painfully imaginative and grotesque and terribly significant to the narrative as a whole (part of the mystery to be uncovered), executed with the kind of delicate and thoughtful precision of animation that tickles the hind parts of the brain which crave curiosity and subversion. The use of animation also helps the storytellers to make this somewhat “based on a true story” tale feel as if it’s taking place on another world, not just in another time. Actors in costume and makeup are one thing, but animation enables unnatural cinematography, lighting, and sound – absolute exaggerated impossibilities – that cannot be captured in a believable way in another medium. Most importantly, it also reduces the distractions of the physical forms that are so important to the ideas within the narrative. As mentioned, bodies on display are not inherently sexual, only each viewer’s proclivities/fetishes make them sexual within that context, and presenting the physical form, whether male, female, or something transformed, via animation aids in decreasing arousal by making them less corporeal, even while the art itself is presented in a clearly intentional arousing form.
L-R: Jurģis Spulenieks as Klibis, Einars Repše as Thiess, and Agate Krista as Neze in DOG OF GOD. Photo courtesy of Tritone Studio.
On its surface, Dog of God is a typical faith vs. modernity tale, indicative of the battle between non-secular and secular ideals that have persisted since the invention of religion. Though the ideas presented here reflect a specific faith and the dangers of misogyny, it does not do so without indicating that all who wage war get bloodied in some form. Everything that happens in the narrative traces back to Buckolz and his terrible pride, but the choices made by Klibis, Neze, and Thiess as a result of Buckholz are what generate consequences far-reaching beyond the pulpit. The end result is something horrific, bloody, and grotesque while strangely hot and provocative. In summation, the only love that matters should be between you and yourself because defining yourself by the love of a Sky Daddy who leaves you on read just creates resentment that harms others. Also, consent is key; no one owes you their body, and keep your lust to yourself unless otherwise permitted.
Screened during Tribeca Film Festival 2025.
For more information, head to the official Tribeca Film Festival Dog of God webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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