Review of Dogtooth (2009) by Mark A — 07 Apr 2011
A haunting tale of a family dynamic unlike any that you have seen before, this film was extremely bizarre, and somewhat disturbing. The father (Christos Stergioglou) keeps his wife (Michelle Valley) and three teenage children (Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis) isolated in a rural compound, and rules with an iron fist.
Only a woman who works as a security guard at his factory is allowed to visit, and then she is blindfolded for the journey. The children are ignorant of the world and all of their schooling has come at the hands of their parents, and is designed to keep them from wandering off the compound and from getting curious about the world at large.
The movie is beautifully filmed, which masks the violence that simmers near the surface and occasionally manifests, at strange times and in strange ways. This is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart.
Animals, children, and a grown woman are brutalized, and there are highly charged, perversely erotic scenes played out. The acting is very good, but the story just bewilders.
This review of Dogtooth (2009) was written by Mark A on 07 Apr 2011.
Dogtooth has generally received positive reviews.
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