Sog Review

One of my favourite short films at the festival was the animated film “Sog” (2017; Director and
writer: Jonatan Schwenk), which I watched on Wednesday afternoon. “Sog” told the story of a
mysterious mountainous area inhabited by pitch black coloured creatures that has lots of fish stuck
in trees following a flood. While some of the creatures instinctively try to attack and eat the fish, one
of them tries his best to rescue them.



One of the reasons why I enjoyed “Sog” was that it showed that a film doesn’t necessarily need
dialogue to make an interesting and compelling story. (On a side note you could also argue that
making a film with no dialogue means that it could be shown at any film festival without worrying
about language problems) The nameless black creatures that inhabit the world can’t speak as they
have no visible mouths, and the director Jonatan Schwenk conveys their emotions by just slightly
altering the shape of their eyes. Thanks to this it is immediately clear which of the creatures are ‘evil’
or violent and which are more kind hearted.

While watching “Sog” I felt that Schwenk may have written the film as a metaphor for the debate
between the vegetarian and meat eating cultures. Upon discovering the fish stuck in the trees, most
of the creatures instinctively start throwing rocks at them to knock them out of the trees, and
eventually start burning the trees down too. Whereas one of the creatures wants to help the fish by
putting them in the river stream in the cave and allowing them to make their journey home. It seems
clear to me that Schwenk supports vegetarianism because the creature that rescues them seems
kind and helpful, whereas the other creatures seem angry, violent and intimidating. The fish even
react differently to these different creatures – they quite understandably screech for help when they
are having rocks thrown at them, but give a sort of thank you to the kind creature by blowing
bubbles at it.

In conclusion I really enjoyed “Sog” because it had a compelling story, interesting and emotive
characters which proved that you don’t necessarily need dialogue to make a good film, and the
intriguing and thought provoking vegetarian/meat eater metaphor.

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