Dogtooth (2009)

Doogtooth, the official Greek entry to the 2011 Academy Awards, is nominated for Best Foreign Film. Released in 2009, and directed by Giorgos Lanthimos, Dogtooth is a strikingly original film that captures a world that is at once like nothing you’ve ever seen, but oddly familiar at the same time.

The story is about a family of five who live in a beautiful walled villa in Greece. It’s more like a compound because the patriarch (Christos Stergioglou) is the only one who ever gets to venture into the world beyond the tall fences that surround the property. His wife (Michele Valley) and three teenaged children live in a world that at first seems oddly Edenic.

The film opens with the children listening to an instructional cassette. They learn that the word “sea” means a leathe...

Unnamed parents (Christos Stergioglou and Michele Valley) are so obsessed with their children that they have, over the years, created an walled environment in which they see nobody but each other and never leave their substantial rural home. There is one exception, and this is "Christina" (Anna Kalaitzidou) who is brought in from time to time as the paid sex pal of their son (Christos Passalis). Father drives to work each day whilst the remainder of the family live what can only be described as a surreal existence where even words mean different things. Did you know that a zombie was really a buttercup in disguise? Things start to get a bit out of hand, though, when "Christina" starts a friendship with their younger daughter (Mary Tsoni) and the dynamic of indoctrination and intimidation s...

<em>'Dogtooth'</em> is certainly a Yorgos Lanthimos film! On the whole, I found this fascinating. It gets quite disturbing in parts, as you'd expect from this director, but all in all it is very good. The plot starts out difficult to read, though does quickly become clear and well portrayed.

Christos Stergioglou is a perfect fit for his role, rather intimidating and controlling. Angeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni and Christos Passalis bring noteworthy performances as the children, Papoulia and Tsoni particularly stand out. It's not a film that is cast reliant, but they play their part.

Looking back, it is quite a slow paced and meandering movie. However, that's basically only in retrospect because whilst watching I didn't actually feel that to be the case, which is a big positive. The fil...