Dogtooth 2009

Dogtooth 2009

After realizing I had missed a few of the foreign film nominees from the Oscars, I decided to catch up.  With foreign films access is always an issue, but Netflix seems to be getting better all the time.  One nice advantage of foreign films is that sites like Netflix can get streaming rights cheaply.  I personally love this feature since a trip to the mailbox is way too much work!  Now if Netflix just broadened its 'Watch it Now' collection and allowed for you to change subtitles or audio tracks I would probably never leave the house, but I digress.

Dogtooth was the first film on my list available streaming from Netflix so I dove into it first despite hearing some really mixed reviews.  After watching it, the mixed reviews make a lot more sense.  I watched the film last week, but had to take four or five days to digest it all.  This is a truly odd and disturbing movie.  It is also much more than that.  It is moving, interesting, gritty, at times violent, and totally funny in a deeply dark way.  I can understand it getting the Oscar nod due to its acting and story, but it is way to off beat and disturbing to win... Apparently the Academy agrees (It did not win, that was In a Better World).

OK a little background on the film might be nice before I get into the odd details.  Dogtooth is a Greek film that was released there in 2009, but like most foreign films it took a while to reach the US.  It won an award at the Cannes Film Festival gaining international attention in 2009. I am not sure exactly when it first hit our shores, but it splashed up on my radar late in 2010.  It was directed by Yorgos Lanthimos who to our American audience has done nothing noteworthy before Dogtooth, but has directed a handful Greek language feature films.  The rest of its technical crew and writers are equally off the radar to myself and most Americans, but the writing was good.  The story was unique and interesting with dialogue that really sold the crazy world the characters lived in.  Lighting, sound, and cinematography were all sub par even with budget restrictions in mind.  There were a few clever shots, but most of the film was technically mechanical and uninspiring.

The story is a bit unhinged, but so unique I can totally forgive the lackluster aspects of the film.  It centers around a family of five.  The father seems to work as an average factory manager, but that is the only connection to the outside world that the family has.  The three 'kids', one boy and two girls, are late teenagers, but have never left the compound that they live in with their parents.  The parents have completely sheltered their children and control their lives and education.  The parents redefine words and terms to explain the outside world.  The 'sea' is a chair and cats are dangerous animals that kill.  Much of the dark comedy in the movie revolve around these repurposed words and misunderstandings.  The son attacks a kitten with garden shears to protect his family and the children believe that real airplanes sometimes fall out of the sky so you can play with them (the parents put toy sized models in the yard where the plane 'crashed').

The downside is some of the most disturbing content also revolves around these misunderstandings.  The scene with the kitten is highly disturbing and dark.  The daughters lick each other sexually after learning it from a visitor, but in all the wrong places (shoulders, stomach, face, etc).  This brings me to the most unsettling aspect of the movie to me.  Incest plays out prominently in the story, always a direct result to such insular families, and is portrayed a little too completely.  American cinema would probably ignore this controversial story idea completely and without it the film would loose its potency, but it could have been addressed more through inference making it less unnerving.  This seems to be a conclusion other reviews have also reached.  It deals with interesting, even if disturbing, topics, but shows too much of the truth to be viewed as entertainment.  The story can't be discussed in too much more detail without ruining the humorous and dark surprises, but the film's story was very engaging.

My favorite part of the movie was the acting.  Considering the movie basically had a cast of five, without stand out acting this movie would be a complete bore.  The roles of the children were wonderfully acted.  In particular the 'Eldest' played by Aggeliki Papoulia.  She was spectacular in this film's lead role and made awkward-rebellious work.  She was oddly sexual, violent, and beautiful while still maintaining an innocence and childlike nature.  Her character was the child testing the boundaries and creating the central conflicts throughout the film giving her the most room to work.  Papoulia's portrayal showed all the depth of the internal conflict of a character who is totally trapped, but is scared to escape.  The father played by Christos Stergioglou was amazing as well.  Taking a violently protective and abusive father, but playing him as a soft, methodical character worked wonders in this role.

So to wrap this up... Dogtooth was a great character drama that also touched on dark humor and sexuality, but did it all in a way that was disturbing to watch.  It is a movie that will leave you thinking, but was slow paced and at times boring.  I was moved by and sympathized with the main character, but felt no relief upon resolution.  The characters and story were intriguing, yet if I had to balance enjoyment and entertainment against the disturbing and hard to watch scenes, this film would come up short.  All in all, this film was amazingly well acting, but was so oddly paced and unnerving that I cannot totally say I enjoyed the experience.  I would recommend this film to fans of foreign language dramas and those that will put up with a lot of bore for those dark, dark comedy gems.