There’s an extremely inane-looking talking-dog adventure comedy called Strays in cinemas on both sides of the Atlantic at the moment; it just landed on premium VOD in the US today. (I haven’t seen it, but I’m sort of morbidly drawn to its apparent terribleness, and might give in.) This is most definitely not that movie. The 2021 film Stray is, instead, a beautiful documentary portrait of the street dogs of Istanbul — where it is illegal to capture or euthanize homeless animals, so the city teems with them. Filmmaker Elizabeth Lo shoots low, from the dogs’ eye level, and beautifully captures their friendships and rivalries and their interactions with humans. We like to imagine that dogs see us as gods, but these dignified canines seem to consider us very much their equals, at best. (Read my 2021 review.)
US: stream on Hulu and Kanopy; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: stream on Netflix; rent/buy on Prime, Apple TV, and Dogwood on Demand
See Stray at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
