To Be a Dog

After his company goes bankrupt in New York, Bryan (45), a programmer, becomes obsessed by the idea of visualizing smells based on signals sent by a dog’s brain. He promises his son that he will create an app allowing the user to delve into a canine world of smells. Human and canine POV scenes interchange. The programmer pitches his idea to a Virtual Reality Headset Company, claiming that because a dog’s vision is limited to the colors blue and yellow, other colors could be used for representing scents. The Company rejects his idea as unrealistic even though the dog's POV or point of smell generates impressive visuals. Bryan finds employment in an Istanbul-based Canal Building Company creating apps for drones. The second Bosphorus will make Istanbul an island. His colleague Deniz (35) flirts with the divorced American but fails to elicit a reaction. Bryan adopts a stray dog, Kurt, and asks a vet to implant brain sensors and a microchip into the dog’s brains. Bryan and the dog do not get along. He treats the dog like a test subject. The dog’s brain sensors only emit chaotic and unclear signals. Bryan purposely allows stray dogs to attack Kurt in order to understand his brain signals better. Deniz stops him and accuses him of being heartless. Disappointed, Bryan stops conducting his experiments and leaves for the Black Sea coast with Kurt. Man and dog spend days without any computer or conducting any experiments and the two form a bond. Bryan finds a friend in Kurt. Deniz visits the pair and sleeps with Bryan in the tent. She concludes that the dog and Bryan have both recovered mentally. Bryan discovers that Kurt’s brain signals have become clean and clear. He sends the first smell signal to his son and asks him to assign a color and form to it. The programmer concludes that the neurons in Kurt’s brain have created a Pavlovian reflex in Bryan’s human brain – conditioning a reflex to be empathic. Only now did the canine brain signals reveal themselves. However, there is no time to rejoice in his success because the Islamic State and Turkish agents intervene and try to kidnap Kurt because of his microchip. The secret agent Deniz stored compromising information about the enemies of the Canal on the microchip. The human-canine duo escapes and hides in the area of the canal building. Terrorists shoot and injure the dog. Bryan shields Kurt with his body when a grenade explodes. He suffers a contusion and loses his sight. Deniz visits Bryan in the hospital and tries to explain why she exploited both him and the dog. The doctor promises to return Bryan’s sight and implants temporary blind sensors connected to a camera. Bryan links the sensors to Kurt’s implants. An otherworldly, impressionistic vision of the Earth reveals itself in blue and yellow. Static objects are blurred and everything in motion appears in contrast. Everything emanates a colored scent and is dispersed by a colorful wind. The blind Bryan starts to run. His eyes and nose run faithfully alongside him. Bryan, his son and Kurt visit a Disney theme park where people see what their pets smell through VR headsets. Bryan tells his son that he and Kurt now have a new job diagnosing cancer flawlessly. Several canine-human duos with VR glasses run by in NYC Central Park. Kurt trots behind Deniz.