CNN
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After the hoopla of Netflix’s release of “Tiger King,” its latest unusual fate may involve a different four-legged creature. Like that original sensation, “Gunther’s Millions” is about the weird people in the spotlight, but its true insights reveal how the media can be swayed by too-good-to-be-true (or too-fun-to-reality-check) people. story – in this case, a German shepherd with a trust fund of 400 million dollars.
Spread over four episodes, the story revolves around a dog who lives on a luxurious Florida estate that once belonged to Madonna, with her staff of 27 regular workers. As for the money, it is attributed to a German who fell in love with the dog and, lacking the rest of the family, chose to leave him (and his Roman descendants updated with numbers) in the lap of luxury.
It’s clear, however, that Gunther’s guardian, an Italian pharmaceutical heir named Maurizio Mian, has his paws on Gunther’s story (or tail), which over the years has included buying luxury real estate and surrounding the dog with a band of five types. , known as Burgundians, are basically portrayed as human Ken and Barbie dolls. Yet what almost sounds like a joke (“Stay in class, Miami”) has a more interesting element, highlighting Mian’s ideal of physical perfection and passion for strange social experiments about the difficult nature of happiness.
Before it ends, the series – directed by Aurelien Leturgie – will reveal a lot about the truth behind Gunther’s millions and the unanswered questions about when, where and how his fortune.
Long before that, there are parts of this story that don’t seem to pass the sniff test, not that you’d know it by watching the news clips sprinkled all over the place – many from local TV stations – that fall, soften and drown out the fascinating aspect of human of what they can say as “the richest dog in the world.”
The dramatic nature of the presentation shows that the filmmakers are keeping it as a kind of comedy, until the dramatic moment when Mian or one of Gunther’s “employees” objects to a question or, occasionally, asks the producers to turn off the film. camera.
Ultimately, however, there is a darker side to “Gunther’s Millions” that serves at least as an indictment of those who gave Mian and others enough media exposure without stopping to pay attention to the red flags that eventually fly in the last two chapters.
In this genre, getting the “amazing” label can be half the battle, and “Gunther’s Millions” certainly qualifies. Still, the documentary works on multiple levels, and while its dog star (currently Gunther VI, incidentally) seems to be a nice guy, the coverage surrounding him is evidence of how the media can go to the dog in more ways than one.
“Gunther’s Millions” premieres February 1 on Netflix.
