A comparative analysis of the psychological role of the dachshund in four episodes of Todd Solondz’s German film Wiener Dog (2016), through the lens of object relations theory.
Four short stories, four snapshots of life, all united by one peculiar dog with an elongated body. The film Wiener Dog is a fine canvas on which the threads of object relations are intricately woven.
Story One: Remy and Sausage the Dog.
On the surface, the story takes place in a wholesome family where everything appears clean and orderly. A father and mother care for their young son, Remy, who is recovering from an illness. The dachshund, adopted from a shelter, is meant to be the boy’s friend. We observe how the boy experiences projective identification, as the dog becomes a transitional object for him.
Remy perceives his mother as someone who could harm, castrate, or even kill him. He is afraid, and this fear is projected onto the dog: “I have to be with him during his sterilization because he’ll want to hold my hand, and he’ll be scared.” This is his fear—he undergoes intensive therapy sessions, and his mother constantly frustrates and terrifies him with grim death stories. Remy tries to compensate for his fears through the dachshund. He allows it to enjoy life, do as it pleases, eat what’s forbidden, and play without limits. The dog reacts on his behalf: it soils the pristine house, disrupts the atmosphere of rigid rules and weekend yoga. For this, the dachshund faces death. The mother cannot tolerate the damage. She retaliates. Remy must defend himself against this punitive object. He decides never to get another dachshund (never to form close relationships again). The boy reaches a chilling conclusion: Death is something good!
Story Two: Duddy
Our dachshund gets a second chance when she is rescued by a lonely nurse who renames her Duddy. Now, the long-bodied dog travels with her new owner and her friend to another state. The dachshund becomes the third object that unites them and gives them a chance to be together. But her mission doesn’t end there. The new couple passes the dog to another family—one that will never have children. The dog remains in this family as a therapist, a child substitute, and a container for all the lived and unlived emotions.
Story Three: What If…
The director pauses the film to prepare us for the serious trials awaiting our dachshund. Now she lives with an elderly film school professor who has never managed to realize himself as a screenwriter. David Schmerz loves using one technique to write screenplays, which he has taught for years: “What if…?”
After another failure, David decides to apply this technique to himself. What if he straps a bomb belt to the dachshund, turning her from a docile creature into a vengeful Talion dog capable of avenging all his failures? What if the screenplay now becomes An Eye for an Eye…?
Story Four: The Death of Rak
A mundane story of old age, where everything is irritating and heading toward an end. Our dachshund ends up in the home of a lonely woman who experiences her old age as a punishment. Her anger at her frailty and illnesses is so intense that she even calls the dachshund “Cancer.” But everything has a beginning and an end, and Rak dies under the wheels of a car. Sorrow and suffering are an inevitable phase of object relations, when existential awareness of loneliness sets in. The dachshund’s death may give this woman the chance to process her own grief over inevitable death. Eventually, she may realize that all her losses were her own doing, and it was her aggression that destroyed her relationships with the world, her mother, and herself. Once she begins to grieve, she can become gentler toward others and herself.
At the end of the film, we see that the dachshund was taken care of after all—she was turned into a taxidermy specimen and now adorns a modern art exhibition!
