The best thing about the growing availability and quantity of streaming titles is that audiences are no longer subject to the very narrow cinematic interests of the general public. Accessibility is the great equalizer and through it the true gems can be allowed to shine. So when I think of the vast library of films that streaming services provide I tend to gravitate towards recommending films that might have gone otherwise overlooked.
A film that I adore and yet know has been criminally underseen by an audience that I know would love it is Dogtooth. That’s not to say that it didn’t receive a large amount of praise and accolades, it was nominated for Best Foreign Feature at the 83rd Academy Awards; you might remember it from the bizarre clip they chose to represent the film, a woman diving at a cat with a large pair of hedge trimmers.
The 2009 Greek drama, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, tells the story of a married couple who keep their children, now adults, locked in a remote housing facility, of their own make, so as to keep them ignorant of the world outside. It is a walled up environment with seemingly everything their children would need to survive: pool, housing, gardens, etc. Even more controlled are the children’s’ perceptions of their world. The parents are constantly reinventing the rules and truths about their world. That means renaming simple words and notions of reality. For example: yellow flowers that bloom in the garden are referred to as zombies and house cats are the ultimate enemy. The father brings home a LP recording of their “grandfather” singing and instead we hear Frank Sinatra sing “Come Fly With Me.”
The real drama begins when the mother and father are forced to invite a young woman into the facility to perform sexual intercourse with their son, whose sexual needs have begun to manifest themselves on each other.
Image Courtesy of Kino International
The less that you know going into Dogtooth the better, as it is truly fascinating to explore the brain-washed world of the facility and the rules by which the father has his children living. Dogtooth is a conversation piece and one whose imagery and story continues to delight with its weirdness and unconventionality. The heads of characters are often cropped out of the frame, or hidden in the background, as if to signify just how mindless these “children” have become as a result of their parents’ many abuses.
It is a mockery of the perfect, nuclear family ideal, an examination of the power of media, and a depiction of the resilience of the human spirit. I got to thinking about the film again after reviewing Blue is the Warmest Color last week, as they are both very different films about sexual awakening. However, Dogtooth weaves an Adam and Eve analogy that also manages to comment on the role that film and pop culture has in our lives.
Image Courtesy of Kino International
When the young woman, the father’s firm’s security officer, is brought into the home to provide sexual service to the son she introduces the kids to elements outside of the father’s control. In exchange for sexual gratification, the woman gives one of the girls a VHS copy of both Rocky and Jaws. She is the snake in this Garden of Eden, dispensing sexual favors and pop culture knowledge.
I’m interested in the idea that Lanthimos puts forward about how cultures have always thought to control what young people believe. He suggests that through an investigation and awareness of cultures outside of our own, as well as our sexual awakenings as adults, we can free ourselves from the blinding forces in our world.
“Dogtooth” is now available for instant streaming on Netflix Watch Instant and Hulu+.
