Review of Dogtooth (2009) by Jay R — 21 Feb 2011

2011 Oscar Nominee - Best Foreign Language Film.

There are some experiments that just don't work. Dogtooth feels like a concoction of deep themes, dark sibling competition and wacky concepts. Some of them work, some of them don't. I feel as if director Giorgos Lanthimos just decided to throw a bunch of strange ideas onto a screen to see how they would fit. It is shot nicely, and the isolation aspect is explored wonderfully, but I never had any genuine reaction of feeling towards Dogtooth. I just don't understand what this film is trying to say. Made of mostly still shots, Dogtooth is incredibly odd, disturbing and sporadically interesting. But that's where the puck stops.

The concept of Dogtooth is that three teenagers are kept isolated in an estate of some sort with their "mother and father". I use that in quotes because we never really find out if these people are in fact related or not. Lanthimos shows how being alone can take teenagers to desperate levels. Curiosity is a natural human tendency, so when these teenagers begin to explore sex, nature and disobedience, your just asking for a complete tear down of the world they know.

They are taught new words for words that don't belong in their household. For example, "sea" means a large armchair you sit in, and the best one "cunt" means a large lamp. Yeah, can you tell these parents want their kids to be purely perfect without anything wrong? They don't even want them to swear, or know anything that they don't. The parents actually hinder them from learning anything and force whatever they feel like on them. From forced sexual intercourse to barking like dogs to repel possible killer cats (no Salo here), these children are slaves.

Soon, this original and perplexing premise gives way to robotic character interactions and very strange, almost surreal-like sequences. The random dancing, the terribly awkward sex and a giant obsession with "licking" all really add up to nothing. It may be the point, showing that these lives are nothing more than materials for a strange test or parental dysfunction, but I wasn't grabbed by it. I don't mind my emotions being challenged (Elephant is a great test in emotional detachment) but I felt like I was in the doghouse the whole time (like Lars von Trier's Dogville). It's a big risk taker, but I wasn't rewarded from all the looney going-ons on this land.

If you look up the story line on IMDB (which you should) it says this film could very well be on another planet. Okay. That may explain a lot, but that is a big contrivance. If it is set on another planet, then the film is free to do whatever it pleases with the backing that it isn't apart of our world anyways. But I think it is apart of our world because it has the same animals, the same looking people and the same structures. It could be a defective clone of our world where only some parts made it over to this clone world, and other better aspects were left behind. Enough existential debate, this film is strange with equal reactions of odium and fascination.

What I couldn't believe is that this film was a supposed black comedy from Greece. Really? I honestly didn't even chuckle. There aren't any scenes that seemed parodic or self-referential. Or any type of humour for that matter. To be honest, I didn't find out this was a comedy until after I had seen it. If the goal of this movie was to get some dark laughs, it failed miserably. I was concerned about the well being of the emotionless characters. When one of the teenagers gets sick of it all, it's time to rebel.

Dogtooth is a clash of too much that grabbed too little. There are some well staged, and shocking moments, and some scenes that are symbolic of obsession, control and sexual depravation. But who on earth are these people? Maybe take the "earth" out of that sentence and I may know who they are. If they are human beings, they are terrible parents concentrating on keeping their children close. They put them through degrading activities, strange contests and reward them with stickers like they're in a classroom. If they are not human, the movie is a peculiar depiction of suburbia gone wrong. Isolation causes madness because humans need to explore. Taken to outlandish and kooky heights, Dogtooth is a hit and miss foreign film that is original and unconventional, yet polarizing and static. Apart of our world or not, these parents need a reality check.