The Vern is told to fear the cat and review ‘Dogtooth’.

This review appeared earlier on my other site The Vern’s Videovanguard 

Dogtooth

Cast: Christos Stergioglou, Mary Tsoni

Writers: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

One of the most weirdest,funny, unsettling, disturbing and most fascinating movies of 2010. “Dogtooth” takes issues of parenting,government,censorship,sexuality,individuality and basic human interaction and skewers them in this brilliant movie that was also nominated for Best Foreign Language at the 2011 Oscars. What makes this film unique is despite how it odd it can get,the movie never looks dirty. Most of the action takes place during the day and the setting is a very clean and pristine place.

The family consists of a father, mother, two daughters, and a son. The father is the only one that can leave the property while the mother chooses to stay behind and keep her three children confined in this property. None of the children are prisoners, they just don’t have any idea of anyone else besides them in the world. When you are a child it could be very easy to convince you that no one else besides your family exists. The parents take great measures to make sure the children don’t get any stimuli from the outside world. They only watch home videos of them for entertainment, everything brought home has the label removed, and they are constantly taught the wrong words for items. For example, the sea is the word for chair, and zombie is a little blue flower. The children have lived in this area for over twenty years and have never asked questions. Until one of them gets a hold of a movie from an outside source .

Dogtooth has a lot in common with movies such as “The Truman Show” and “The Village“, but to a way more extreme level. If you only believe the world you are told. You can than be taught to believe most anything. There is a certain point in the development of a person where they discover their own individuality. The children in this movie never have the chance to discover that. Are the parents cruel? Most certainly but they are not that far off from other protective parents. They just take the protection of their kids just a step too far.

This is a very explicit movie with heavy violence and sexual situations. So if you are easily offended you may want to avoid this one. Plus it never gives you any answers, it just leaves you with a lot of questions. Some people find this stimulating because it gives them something to talk about after the movie is over while others just think the filmmakers were just being lazy. Despite if you loved it or hated it. “Dogtooth” is something you’ll never forget.