That Dog can Run

A little girl is critically ill and only one brave canine can save her in 1995's Balto. The last traditionally animated film from Amblin Entertainment, I remember my friends and I turning our noses up at it at the time of its release as just another Disney imitator but now I see it's an excellent artefact of an all but lost art in America.

Sure, a lot of the dogs look like they were cribbed straight from Oliver and Company and Lady and the Tramp. But the talent and dedication that went into such expressive and fluid animation are no less admirable.

Balto is loosely based on a true story. The real life Balto was a purebred husky while the film's Balto is made half wolf in order to give the story a racial conflict theme. It kind of works; the fact that we're talking about dogs and wolves, divorcing the story from human racial groups, gives the conflict a valuable universal quality.

When Balto catches up with the benighted sled carrying the urgently required medicine, he has to deal with the egotistical leader of the dogs who won't hand the reins to a half breed. Then he has to deal with an implausible number of obstacles and action sequences that put a little too much strain on the audience's suspension of disbelief. Still, the animation never stops being amazing.

I think the film is primarily loved now among furries. "Balto head" is almost ubiquitous among male furries. I don't want to kink-shame but I have to admit I've never come close to understanding furry culture which seems to me populated by people who got lost in some intricate self-constructed irony trap. Fortunately, one doesn't need to be a furry to appreciate Balto.

X Sonnet #1905: Viking Raid Edition

Approaching ships were marked with walrus blood.
Their ragged crews digest the frozen north.
The splintered hulls were patched with mould and mud.
To brittle shores the vessels struggle forth.
The breakfast fog admits a single maid.
The cold and fertile beach would yield a clam.
'Twas she who spied the nigh approaching raid.
But ships to her could seem but ghostly sham.
Like grains of glass, the sand was crushed by boot.
Some burning eyes beheld the wayward mouse.
Now tearing dreams of grass conduct to root.
The looming fire dwells in ax and house.
Confusion warps the wooden beams to grey.
A hidden girl discerns no end of day.