Heart Of A Dog

Part essay, part documentary, and part home movie, Laurie Anderson takes the death of her beloved piano-playing terrier Lolabelle as a starting point and goes on a dreamy, comic, philosophical and emotional journey.

Dir: Laurie Anderson USA/France 2015, 75 mins Cert (PG) *

Laurie Anderson’s first feature film in almost 30 years is something of a cathartic tale. Part essay, part documentary, and part home movie, Anderson takes the death of her beloved piano-playing rat terrier Lolabelle as a starting point and goes on a dreamy, comic, philosophical and emotional journey, delving into family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings. Although not strictly overt, you sense the film is also part love letter to her late husband Lou Reed who died in 2013. A shifting collage of drawings, super 8 and animation, Heart of a Dog is threaded through with Anderson’s music and her hypnotic, inimitable voice.