Great observation! This movie did strike me as Hitchcockian at times. Definitely in the camera work and in the building of suspense. The ending had touches of THE 39 STEPS.
While the cop who lost his gun is never mistaken for the killer, the two characters do have a bond -- much like opposite sides of a coin. More like SABOTEUR than STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. In STRAY DOG, the killer is the hero's dark opposite -- similar to the hero on the surface, but possessing a divergent soul.
STRAY DOG will also remind some of THE BICYCLE THIEF and other Italian Neo-Realist cinema.
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lgron000
19 years ago
I think you're right on the money with the bicycle theif reference. I saw this film as basically a blend of 2 [then] recent trends/popular styles [neorealism + noir] into what basically became a whole new way of making movies, trancending both these genres/trends, which were in their own ways becoming stale. It's no surprise at all that neorealism was basically dead and buried within 5 years of Kurosawa integrating it into a broader approach to film.
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