Review of Dogtooth (2009) by Liam C — 27 Mar 2015

I put 'Dogtooth' on my want to see list right before going to bed and as soon as I woke up I just had to watch it, I was just so intrigued by its premise. I knew I was going to see it as soon as I could but I just put it on the list anyway. 'Dogtooth' is a really amazing, thought provoking and shocking film. The first thing that is noticeable is really how drab the cinematography is and I don't mean that as a bad thing; all the washed out colours really help set the tone and feel of the film, it works perfectly. It also really stresses how the children characters feel in their lives, the bags under their eyes just make them seem unwell; staying in a closed environment, even if you can go outside in the garden and get sunlight, really makes you feel ill. But, hey, if you lived in a house that nice, would you want to leave? I kid, I kid. Actually, a big house was chosen on purpose given how claustrophobic its setting is. The story is also very intriguing and ever changing, it's absolutely mesmerising and I could not look away or predict anything that was going to happen next. Some say it is darkly comic in parts and while I do love some black humour, I'm not so sure about this, it was just so unsettling, I might have laughed at just how absurd and surreal this gets, but never anything that happens to the characters. The film tackles a lot of very interesting and challenging themes in a very subtle way that I don't even want to mention, as even mentioning them would ruin their impact and their unpredictable nature; also, what would be the point of explaining what happens? However, what I will say is that it is all very compelling, thought provoking and interesting to discuss. Seeing the lies and deceits that have warped these peoples' minds is hard to watch, they're just like big toddlers. It has been compared to 'The Village' but the two are very different.

The film starts with them being taught fake meanings to words and seeing this used throughout the film is interesting to see what words the parents have chosen and what meanings they have attached and how naturally everyone acts about it as well. It's hard to watch for a few reasons but I looked away at some points just because of how suddenly some graphic things happen, you have very little time to react and it's executed in a very blunt manner, there is nothing glamorised about it at all. Even when some of them are slowly set up, they are still shocking and still happen very suddenly. However, there was one part with a VCR that I thought would have resulted in one character eventually going to jail, you can't just go and do that to people without having repercussions but once again I am thinking too much, the scene had a very powerful and smart end, where we don't see that character ever again and that is what we should take away from it. There was also a part where a character got into the pool when it had fish in it and just, no, I wouldn't want to go in there until it had been cleaned but it gets much stranger than that. The raw performances from a committed cast are excellent and for one of them, Hristos Passalis, it was his first film! I did kind of expect the house to crumble when one character tells another she had a dream he was a zombie, I had an idea that she would actually tell them what a zombie really was and then the mother would lie about it but the way everything progresses from that point on is, like the rest of the film, excellent. Seeing how one character gets increasingly restless after experiencing some more of the world leads to a shocking and smart turn of events with an open ended finale. Some might say that you can't keep people locked up in a house because the government would find out about that, and while that is true, that wasn't the point of the film, the point of it is something much darker and disturbing. And the whole film just makes sex look so mechanical and, honestly, ugly. 'Dogtooth' is a very bold and original piece of filmmaking that really sticks with you and even its title is based on a lie the parents tell the children, how this didn't win the Oscar, wow, I'll never know but once again, they do seem to be scared of new things.