Dogtooth (2009)
Country: GR
Technical: col 94m
Director: Giorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis
Synopsis:
A well-heeled couple live a fortress existence with their grown-up children, who have been restrained from venturing outside by tales of predatory cats and other dangers, and who have been protected from the mass media and been taught a very misleading lexis of words. They are told that they may not leave the compound until one of their 'dogteeth' has fallen out...'
Review:
Like the children, no doubt, we are fed the background rules of existence of this bizarre, almost surreally funny, set-up in a gradual, piecemeal fashion. The carefully controlled experiment of course must backfire on its authors, whose motives are never really examined (one assumes a kind of extreme control freakery), and human nature being what it is means that the desire for knowledge and freedom will prevail - though quite whether they do remains ambiguous in the film's teasing conclusion. It could all be an allegory about totalitarian regimes limiting or manipulating the information made available to their populations, as in a number of Communist countries, or it could be a Buñuelian essay inspired by the Josef Fritzl case and others.
Country: GR
Technical: col 94m
Director: Giorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis
Synopsis:
A well-heeled couple live a fortress existence with their grown-up children, who have been restrained from venturing outside by tales of predatory cats and other dangers, and who have been protected from the mass media and been taught a very misleading lexis of words. They are told that they may not leave the compound until one of their 'dogteeth' has fallen out...'
Review:
Like the children, no doubt, we are fed the background rules of existence of this bizarre, almost surreally funny, set-up in a gradual, piecemeal fashion. The carefully controlled experiment of course must backfire on its authors, whose motives are never really examined (one assumes a kind of extreme control freakery), and human nature being what it is means that the desire for knowledge and freedom will prevail - though quite whether they do remains ambiguous in the film's teasing conclusion. It could all be an allegory about totalitarian regimes limiting or manipulating the information made available to their populations, as in a number of Communist countries, or it could be a Buñuelian essay inspired by the Josef Fritzl case and others.
Country: GR
Technical: col 94m
Director: Giorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis
Synopsis:
A well-heeled couple live a fortress existence with their grown-up children, who have been restrained from venturing outside by tales of predatory cats and other dangers, and who have been protected from the mass media and been taught a very misleading lexis of words. They are told that they may not leave the compound until one of their 'dogteeth' has fallen out...'
Review:
Like the children, no doubt, we are fed the background rules of existence of this bizarre, almost surreally funny, set-up in a gradual, piecemeal fashion. The carefully controlled experiment of course must backfire on its authors, whose motives are never really examined (one assumes a kind of extreme control freakery), and human nature being what it is means that the desire for knowledge and freedom will prevail - though quite whether they do remains ambiguous in the film's teasing conclusion. It could all be an allegory about totalitarian regimes limiting or manipulating the information made available to their populations, as in a number of Communist countries, or it could be a Buñuelian essay inspired by the Josef Fritzl case and others.