Heart Of A Dog, film review: 'Nothing if not original'

(PG) Laurie Anderson, 75 mins, featuring: Archie, Jason Berg, Heung-Heung Chin

Heart Of A Dog could easily have seemed pretentious in the extreme - an experimental, avant grade movie about a pet dog.

Instead, it has an unlikely charm. Laurie Anderson’s playful film combines animation, archive footage and lots of sequences of Anderson’s beloved terrier, Lollabelle.

The little mutt, it seems, was a fully signed up member of New York bohemia. She was taught to paint and even to make small sculptures with her paws in plasticine.

The director uses Lollabelle as the starting point to talk about everything from 9/11 and homeland security, from data hoarding and the pain of bereavement to the way that dogs see and smell the world Anderson herself narrates in a gentle, sing-song voice.

Nothing if not original, this is almost certainly the only movie about a terrier that cites the writing of Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, the painting of Goya and the wisdom of Jewish grandmothers