Return to the Dogs, Lodge Kerrigan’s new secret

The new yorker, Lodge Kerrigan, who maintains a discrete profile in American independent cinema, will be featured in Un Certain Regard this Thursday with Return To The Dogs, in the Salle Debussy (14.00, 22.00). This is the fourth feature film by this filmmaker who remains insufficiently known.

The general public isn’t overly familiar with Lodge Kerrigan. Revealed at Cannes in 1994 with Clean, Shaven, presented in Un Certain Regard, this rigorous filmmaker cultivates a definite preference for media obscurity. An attitude which echoes the understated but highly detailed direction which underpins his films. Lodge Kerrigan likes solitary characters with a touch of madness, articulating tragic stories. Such was Clean, Shaven, which depicted the torment of a schizophrenic father looking for his daughter.

Of Return to the Dogs, the American director has only given a few hints: “Grace Slick, Monterey, 1967. Rebecca H., Gennevilliers, 2010. Géraldine Pailhas, Paris 2010.” His entourage murmurs that it’s “the portrait of an actress”, played by the French actress Géraldine Pailhas (Espions, 2009). Note also that at Cannes, the director presented Claire Dolan (1998) In Competition, the story of a call-girl in her thirties trying to change her life.

B.P.