Kynodontas (Dogtooth)

Kynodontas (Dogtooth) (Director: Giorgos Lanthimos): Although I saw this film sev­eral days ago, it’s been dif­fi­cult to put my thoughts into words. Lanthimos has delivered an unfor­get­table and dis­turbing film, but not one that is easy to cri­tique or even describe. And though I con­sider myself more of a film reviewer than a critic, it’s even dif­fi­cult to provide any sort of plot summary.

Briefly stated, Dogtooth con­cerns a well-to-do Greek family, living in a large sub­urban house. The par­ents of three adult chil­dren have kept them con­fined to the house since birth, teaching them their own unique vocab­u­lary (the “sea” is a large arm­chair, the “phone” is a salt shaker, “zom­bies” are small yellow flowers, etc.). Though the chil­dren appear to be in their twen­ties, they are dressed like chil­dren and spend their days engaged in com­pet­itive games to gain the favour of their par­ents. Occasionally, the father pays Christina, the female security guard at his work­place, to relieve his son’s sexual urges. None of the chil­dren have names.

If this isn’t unset­tling enough, it soon gets worse. Christina takes a liking to the older daughter and gives her gifts in exchange for sexual favours. One of the gifts is a col­lec­tion of VHS movies, which the daughter watches after everyone is asleep. This little bit of the out­side world begins to obsess her. She asks her sister to call her Bruce, and begins quoting dia­logue from Rocky and Jaws. She lashes out viol­ently at her brother, and in one har­rowing scene, dances her­self into a frenzy. When her father finds out the source of this “evil,” he beats Christina and ban­ishes her from their home. In a matter-of-fact but deeply dis­turbing con­ver­sa­tion with his wife, they agree that one of the sis­ters will have to take Christina’s place.

The title of the film comes from another of the heart­breaking lies the par­ents have told their chil­dren. They will be ready to leave the house only when their dog­tooth (eye tooth) falls out. As the older daughter’s des­per­a­tion grows, she takes mat­ters into her own hands, and the res­ults are tragic. Aggeliki Papoulia is abso­lutely fear­less in this dif­fi­cult role, and the rest of cast make a strange and dis­turbing viewing exper­i­ence also sur­pris­ingly compelling.

This is a film of stun­ning visuals to accom­pany the ideas. The house is dec­or­ated in 70s kitsch style, which rein­forces the feeling of being trapped in time. The chil­dren are suf­foc­ating in this air­less envir­on­ment, and their sexual and violent urges are treated as some­thing to be con­trolled. Everything that should give them pleasure is turned into a com­pet­i­tion or a test of obed­i­ence. In the post-screening Q&A, Lanthimos explained that the gen­esis of the film came out of a dis­cus­sion he had with some friends who were get­ting mar­ried. When he expressed his doubts about the insti­tu­tions of mar­riage and family, his friends became extremely defensive. He decided to make a film about what would happen if a man went to the ulti­mate extreme to pro­tect his family. In an odd way, the film reminded me of Cleanflix (review), which I’d seen just the day before. The folly of thinking that evil comes only from out­side of us, or that our nat­ural desires are bad, always leads to tragic con­sequences, and yet it is ingrained in our society. Luckily, it rarely goes to such extremes, but Dogtooth is a par­tic­u­larly unset­tling reminder of the danger of idol­izing the idea of “family” values.

Here is the Q&A with dir­ector Giorgos Lanthimos from after the screening:

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Duration: 11:38

(9/10)

Tagged as: #tiff09, family, greece