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Summary: The father, the mother and their three kids live in a house at the outskirts of a city. There is a tall fence surrounding the house. The kids have never left the house. They are being educated, entertained, bored and exercised in the manner that their parents deem appropriate, without any influence from the outside world.
I feel like I should like DOGTOOTH more than I do. I appreciate it, to be sure, but for me it doesn't quite rise above the level of an exercise. The deadpan sociopathy of the parents (Christos Stergioglou and Michelle Valley) is chilling, as are the stunted emotions of their children, but after Giorgos Lanthimos (the director and co-writer) makes this initial point, the film doesn't quite get going. Still, it's fascinating, and there are some great absurd comic bits, like the "evil cat" scene.
Lanthimos offers himself as a possible Haneke successor with a film that is as smart as it is disturbing. I feel terrible for anyone who watched Dogtooth based on the cover blurb citing it as "hilarious".
dogs are like clay and our job here is to mold them. a dog may be energetic, a fighter, cowardly, or gentle. all this requires work, patience and care from us. every dog is waiting for us to show it how it should behave. so the issue here is to decide together how we want your dog to behave. do we want an animal or do we want a friend? do we want a guard who will respect us as his masters and do unhesitatingly whatever we ask of him?
Seeing a cast of wooden actors move around robotically fulfilling a pathological fantasy of a script is not exactly entertaining. Actually, no it's utterly unwatchable. Sure the premise is somewhat interesting, but the execution is so dull I was fighting torpor 15 minutes in.
Intentionally evasive. The film never delivers any answers as to "why?" but gives the viewers enough to make up their own mind. The film is drained of emotion, which gives the violent outbursts that much more importance. To me, this film is showing, in an extreme way, the limitations of agents of primary socialization.
Almost too aesthetically perfect in a generic Clinical Euro Arthouse Cynicism kind of way, like a seamless hybrid of Seidl and Haneke. But really can i complain? This would have seemed like one of the best movies ever to me at a certain time i'm sure.