John Harden
Born 1962, Walnut Creek, CA, lives and works in Santa Rosa, CA
Still from La vie d’un chien (The Life of a Dog), 2004, film on DVD, 13 minutes, 15 seconds, Lent by the Artist
Writer and director John Harden made his first film as an extra-credit project for his seventh-grade Spanish class. His witty take on the human condition has led to films about the break-down of his 1976 Ford Pinto and, recently, this clever homage to Chris Marker’s classic film short, La Jetée, an apocalyptic tale of time travel and lost memory, refashioned as a contemplation on the life of a dog.
La Vie d’un Chien (The Life of a Dog) tells the story of a Parisian scientist who invents a serum which temporarily changes him into a dog and discovers that life as a canine is vastly superior to human existence. Using photo-roman, a style in which a story is told through a series of black and white still shots presented with narration, Harden’s poetic French voice-overs reveal his subject’s absurd crisis of free will with dignity and a wistful, romantic spirit. Echoing Marker’s sensitivity for one’s sense of place, Harden shows his reverence for the City of Lights while achieving a mild parody of French romanticism and existentialism. In this humorous take on an existential crisis, Harden’s hero attempts to understand his place in this world and in turn expresses the depth of what we mere human beings cannot begin to understand.
