At peace with the past

"WHERE THERE IS AN UNHAPPY PERSON, God sends a dog."
This quote from the poet Lamartine appears in the opening credits of Dogman, an intense and moving 2023 film written and directed by Luc Besson. The film, inspired by a terrible news story, tells the story of horror and violence experienced by Douglas (Caleb Landry Jones), who was forced by his father to spend his childhood locked in a cage with a pack of dogs, starved to death before being used in fighting. Savagely wounded by life, Douglas transforms his pain into empathy for strays like himself, the weak, the marginalized. And so, as an adult, though confined to a wheelchair, he fights for a more just world, for a more equitable redistribution of wealth. His true strength, his legs, are his dogs: dozens and dozens of loyal and extraordinary friends, of every breed and size, capable of overcoming differences by uniting, as only dogs can.

DOUGLAS'S WOUNDED SOUL IS SAVED through the protection and care offered by his beloved dogs, nourished by a love that asks nothing in return. After all, as the protagonist says, "Dogs don't lie when they talk about love."
Throughout the film, we root for this half-hero, an irregular who mocks social norms but also himself, who reads Romeo and Juliet to an audience of four-legged friends and who on Friday nights dresses up as a woman, impersonating Edith Piaf, Marilyn Monroe, and Marlene Dietrich in a nightclub. And it is precisely an Edith Piaf song, "Non, je ne regrette rien" (No, I regret nothing), that accompanies the film's final scene, Douglas's farewell to life, and which sustains the viewer's empathy from beginning to end.

A WINNING MUSICAL CHOICE BECAUSE THE SONG CONTAINS a message of total acceptance of the past, an invitation to make peace with one's past, considering the good and the bad received as indifferent. "No, I regret nothing, neither the good that was done to me, nor the bad." Like Douglas, Edith Piaf lived a troubled life, full of suffering but illuminated by the iron will to move forward without ever looking back. Her love for singing saved her, which led her to debut at the age of 20 in a Parisian cabaret, with her chameleon-like voice, full of nuances, capable of being hoarse, raspy, and very sweet. And like the protagonist of Dogman, Piaf also suffered serious back injuries, yet she continued to perform for many years, sporting an extravagant and eccentric look throughout her life.

THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HIS DIMINISH FIGURE AND HIS GIANT VOICE reflects Douglas's inner strength, as he can stand for a few moments, just long enough for a song, before collapsing to the ground as the curtain closes before him.
Luc Besson explores the mechanisms of coping with suffering, a state shared by all of us and which sees love as the only source of inner peace.
Help for those who suffer does not come from outside, but from the love each of us has cultivated within ourselves, and it makes no difference whether we nurture it for music or for a crazy group of irresistible and faithful stray dogs.

Mauro Tabasso
NP January 2026