Film review: Working Dogs
On a walk around the Mont-Sainte-Anne resort, not long before the 2010 cross country world championships, Geoff Kabush came across the sled dogs of Les Secrets Nordiques, which are kennelled near the mountain biking centre. Director Sam Smith was there and filmed the encounter.
[vimeo height=”350″ width=”620″]https://vimeo.com/119789184[/vimeo]
On a walk around the Mont-Sainte-Anne resort, not long before the 2010 cross country world championships, Geoff Kabush came across the sled dogs of Les Secrets Nordiques, which are kennelled near the mountain biking centre. Director Sam Smith was there and filmed the encounter. The filmmaker, who’s known for the web documentary series on Jeremy Powers, Behind the Barriers, as well as the Transition films about North American cyclocross races, was working on a documentary on Kabush at the time, following the racer to some World Cup races. The meeting with the dogs resonated with Smith and became a metaphor around which he built his film about Kabush, Working Dogs.
The conceit seems to work at first. Bruno Saucier, the owner of Les Secrets Nordiques, speaks of the sled dogs, how they are bred to work. Their qualities are in their genes. “If you don’t follow the instinct of that dog, he will feel useless. He will feel that he’s not at the right place. He’s going to have all sorts of deviant behaviour trying to fill the emptiness of his non-working life,” Saucier says. Following the words of the dog expert, Smith takes up Kabush’s story. The mountain biker speaks of his early years racing. Then, Denis and Peggy Kabush, Geoff’s parents, share their story and more about the budding racer. The connection to the dogs, then, is that a rider such as Kabush has a something ingrained in his psyche that makes him race, that drives him to compete. In both cases, it’s a quiet determination.
Like many metaphors, they break down if you ride them too hard. Sled dogs work together as a team. On a cross country course, there can be some team tactics, but it’s a much more individualistic pursuit, especially the way Smith presents the racing. Maybe Kabush’s mechanic, soigneur and wider network are his pack? Or are all the riders on the course part of one pack even though they are competing for first? Regardless of how well the metaphor holds, Smith weaves the two elements together well.
Where the director excels is in revealing Kabush’s story. Denis Kabush tells how his son mastered, with serious compulsion, juggling a soccer ball in a week. Peggy Kabush muses that Geoff’s competitive spirit was his own from the beginning, but he was also determined to keep up with his sister Danelle, who is two years older, in almost everything. Geoff tells about the time he got a “thank you” joint for helping with some trail maintenance. He didn’t know what to do with the weed. His friend took him down to the co-op where the non-smoking cyclist made a trade. “I traded my joint for a burrito, which I thought was a pretty good deal,” says Kabush. It’s these little moments, the glimpses into Kabush’s life and personality, that make Working Dogs a strong film.
