Dogtooth
An essential, provocative and satisfying marvel, it grapples with everything warm and safe in the world.
Winner of 2009's Un Certain Regard at Cannes, Greek commercial director Giorgos Lanthimos has created one of the most successfully unique films of the year.
A blistering headfuck of a film, it grapples with everything warm and safe in the world, creating a disgustingly unsettling portrayal of family life. Lanthimos' work can be seen in many ways. Not vague enough to be confusing, but giving us no real answers, Dogtooth (Kynodontas) can be a political allegory, or most likely a look at how parents can indoctrinate their loving children to the point where it's abuse.
The kind of control Josef Fritzl inflicted on his family is reflected here, but there are no dingy basements, only brilliantly blue Greek skies and sparkling swimming pools. Father (Christos Stergioglou) and Mother (Michelle Valley) have brought up their now adult children within the gates of their comfortable home. The have not been given names, known only as Older Daughter (Aggeliki Papoulia), Younger Daughter (Mary Tsoni) and Son (Hristos Passalis). As initially disturbing as a family with no given names is, it's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the systematic mental abuse. So determined are the parents to deprive their offspring of the outside world, they have concocted ludicrous stories to terrify them. It's best not to know these before you see the film, but to be shocked and bleakly amused as the lies unfold. It involves teaching their children the wrong words for everyday items, a staggering explanation for planes in the sky, and what their greatest natural predator is. One thing they do believe is that they had a (non-existent) older brother who lives in great danger outside the walls.
Lanthimos portrays the family's inevitable sexual deviancy unexpectedly. The only outsider allowed near the family home is Christine (Anna Kalaitzidou), a security guard at Father's firm, who is driven blindfolded to the house to have explicitly shot but perfunctory sex with the son, who, like his sisters, appears to be in his late teens/early twenties. Boldly for a film about abuse, Father is not interested in his offspring, but aggressively decides that sex is a need for his son only. Christine is the catalyst for the family to unravel, when Son is, unsurprisingly, not satisfying Christine. She turns her attention to Older Daughter, who is consequently exposed to the outside world via action films on VHS. The simmering undercurrent of brutality is unleashed in surprising ways, some physically violent, some disturbing, some laugh-out-loud funny, but always under complete control from Lanthimos and his astonishingly courageous cast. Constantly knocked off balance by the tanned, healthy victims in their bright whites, there is a Michael Haneke-like quality to the film, being both painful, sometimes unwatchably so, but stunningly beautiful.
The latter part of the story is mainly in Papoulia's capable hands, as the Older Daughter's innocent mind comes to terms with the realisation that she may be ready to face the great outdoors. Gripping from the opening, despite artful lingering scenes that introduce the mindset of the children, with a conclusion that will have you sitting in your seat until the lights come up, this is an essential, provocative and satisfying marvel. If you're wondering why it's called Dogtooth, you'll just have to wait and see. And laugh. Then vomit.
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