| DOGTOOTH |
| Written by Sian Rafferty |
| Monday, 27 July 2009 12:52 |
 A few months ago when Josef Fritzl was revealed to have been keeping his daughter in a basement away from society, the whole world was stunned. After the initial shock wore off, the question on everybody's lips was: how is this girl ever going to exist in normal society? On the opposite end of the scale; Hollywood's answer to this question are movies like 'Blast from the Past'. Here, Brendan Fraser stumbles into the real world in a comedic and heartwarming fashion, eventually finding love and acceptance... Surely, this could only happen in movie-land. In real life, the story would be a lot more horrific and uncomfortable. So is 'DOGTOOTH', the new film by Giorgos Lanthimos, finally a movie portraying the real answer to the question? Set in what we can only assume is modern day Greece, 'Dogtooth' is an exploration of the effects of constant isolation and deception, on a set of siblings. Older Daughter, Younger Daughter and Son; have been grounded at home since birth and constantly fed lies surrounding the state of the world outside. Now adults, their parents must work harder than ever to maintain the illusion of the safe island which is their home, as their children become ever more curious about the "dangerous" outside world. This movie is no fairytale where the children fight against their evil parents, for their freedom to discover the wide world of opportunity. Instead, this is a social experiment. We witness a portrayal of what would happen when a set of new social rules are introduced... and the consequences of these being upheld. The world of this family is totally bizarre when looked at in context with accepted normal society. All the taboos which we have generated over thousands of years regarding nudity and sex are completely thrown out the window. Violence is prominent, in both the punishment and as the crime, as the children never really learned any of the actions frowned upon in accepted society.  The actors who play the younger and older daughters (Mary Tsani and Aggeliki Papoulia) and the son (Hristos Passalis), are totally convincing as the brainwashed children. Even though they appear to be in their early twenties, each one is infantile and laking in basic human skills. If I were not sitting in a theatre, I could believe that these people are actually like this in real life. To be honest, this is one of those movies where I don't want to know how far the actors had to go to get the scenes; the look of horror on the actor's faces couldn't be faked in some settings, unless these are really good actors. Father (Hristios Passalis) is a demonic figure... and you can feel the audience's hate pulsing through the cinema, as he devises one evil scheme after another. It's easy to paint him in this light, yet you also can't help but think that this is a man who originally thought he was doing the best thing for his children, yet lost control as they grew up... and maintaining the deception got increasingly, more difficult. This movie is not for the squeamish. Like I said before, the events are highly realistic and even more highly disturbing. Yet the whole thing is set in this serene, retro-look world where you always feel just on the cusp of totally anarchy and chaos. Yes, this film has a typical cult-film feel to it with bright lurid colours, contrasting with glaring white light. Every character is washed out and has a grungy, deprived look about their features. Yet this feature doesn't venture too far into the stylised. Everything feels rough and stark, yet totally realistic. 'Dogtooth' is a film with many ideas and presents them to a stunned audience, in an unrelenting fashion. After emerging from watching this movie back into society, you begin to fully appreciate your normal upbringing which fashioned you into an entirely ordinary and socially adequate person. For that feeling at least, this movie is truly worthwhile.  |
