Summary
Summary
An insular family’s strange yet serene life is upset as the children come of age and want more than their sheltered existence.
The Film
Having really enjoyed Yorgos Lanthimos’ (“The Favourite,” “The Lobster”) later films, I figured it was high time to check out one of his early before-he-was-famous movies.
Like the works which he would later become known for, Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth” is as much about tone as any plot or character. The tone is awkwardly reserved, unemotional, and detached yet fascinating as Yorgos juxtaposes it with slight turns of phrase or requests which clang like cymbals in comparison.
In “Dogtooth,” we follow a family which is strange and sheltered to say the least. The parents won’t let their three children leave the grounds of their home and even have hang ups themselves about how often they should go out. I kept expecting to find out that there was some big crisis happening in the world that Mom and Dad were trying to protect them from but it doesn’t seem that this is the case.
Their strict approach to parenting means that their entire lives feel small, anemic, and out of step with the way our own world lives. The parents teach their kids English but they also mis-define certain words, creating an alternate vocabulary. They have to bring a woman in for their son to have sex because they fear he may run away out of passion. The dad even has his kids barking like dogs out of obedience to him, at one point.
My Thoughts
I can’t say I liked this movie as much as even “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” which most people consider to be less engaging than “The Favorite,” or “The Lobster.” That isn’t to say that the movie is not good, though. It’s quite well done and, I imagine, lends itself to many interpretations on its meaning, method, and metaphors.
Personally, I found the film to be presenting us with a classic clash between generations. We have a family, beginning with Mom and Dad, which is being shaped and taught by the two parents. Just the same as in our own culture, the parents are right about some things and wrong about others. As the kids have reached adolescence, and certain incidents have awakened questions in them, they begin to see that the explanatory system that their parents have instilled in them has weaknesses and isn’t always to be trusted. This creates conflict as they decide how to continue interacting with their parents and siblings within the little culture they have all formed together.
This seemed very analogous to the stages of development that we all go through as human beings, first learning from and adopting our parents guidance and views as almost gospel truth but later, establishing our own views and understandings which are built upon what we have been given, even as we discard, amend, and deconstruct. This is a painful process for parent and child alike and if I have one criticism as to the themes of the film it would be that I wanted to see more of the pain that the parents would be feeling, whereas this film focuses primarily on the teenage children.
All in all, I would highly recommend this film to fans of Lanthimos, completionists, and cinephiles with and interest in strange cinema. I didn’t rate the film as highly as some but I wouldn’t hesitate to guess that there are audiences comprised of such people as would give it 4 or even 4 ½ Star ratings. If you are one who discovered Yorgos Lanthimos after last years Oscars run then I would definitely recommend “Dogtooth” as you are just the kind of viewer who might fall in love.
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