What is the main theme in the movie "My life as a dog"?

Question

any minor ones may be suggested also.

Answer 1

It seems that the boy, Ingemar, relates his life to that of the Russian space dog, stuck in a foreign environment for someone else's benefit. Read the review below.

From the DVD Journal: The sort of film that sends reviewers scurrying to their Roget's for alternatives to the word "bittersweet," Lasse Hallström's 1985 My Life As a Dog is a nostalgic, charming, comic/tragic tale of a 12-year-old boy coming of age in 1950s Sweden. Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) is a shy, funny boy with a slightly unhinged streak — he has a penchant for getting into trouble, which isn't exactly difficult for a kid his age. The two great loves of his life are his mother (Anki Liden) and his dog; but when his mother becomes ill with tuberculosis, Ingemar is sent to live with his uncle Gunnar (the charming Tomas von Brömssen, who looks like a Swedish Gene Wilder), leaving his dog behind and adjusting to a new village full of strange new people.

Ingemar relates, through voice-overs, the various news stories he follows that make his own life seem not so bad — a gory javelin incident, a motorcycle stuntman who didn't quite make a jump over 31 buses, and Laika, the Russian dog sent into space to starve to death for science. And since this is a European film, after all, there's the requisite touches of weirdness in the people who Ingemar encounters, like the bedridden neighbor who has the boy read to him from underwear catalogs and the trapeze artist who recites the names of American presidents while riding a unicycle on a tightrope. Hallström presents all of this with a deft touch, keeping just enough distance to give the proceedings the feeling of genuine memories, like we're peeking in on a particularly trying year in a real person's life. It's a strange and touching story with, yes, a bittersweet tone and a sometimes-magical recreation of both the joys and sorrows of childhood.
—Dawn Taylor

Answer 2

My Life as a Dog (Swedish: Mitt liv som hund) is a 1985 Swedish film based on a novel by Reidar Jönsson. It tells the story of Ingemar, a young boy sent to live with relatives. The movie features Anton Glanzelius, Melinda Kinnaman and Tomas von Brömssen.

You are invited to do the remaining research yourself, beginning with Wikipedia and Criterion.

Answer 3

a dogs life

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