Dogtooth (2009, Greece)

“I’ve had it”, announced the man sitting behind me as Dogtooth unspooled its final minutes. And while the film still had me firmly in its grasp, it’s obvious that this is one that will divide audiences, most likely from the outset. Three grown siblings live in a house together with their parents, a middle-aged couple who have taken exacting care to separate their children from the outside world, indoctrinating them in a system of rigorous rules, competitions, and even vocabulary. The three (who are never named, nor is anyone else) live in almost complete ignorance of everything that takes place outside the high fence that borders their home, spending their days creating inane games with one another, fighting like ten-year-olds, and, somewhat inevitably, discovering their dormant sexuality (with a little help from a blindfolded outsider).

Dogtooth is both absurdly funny and disturbingly brutal. Sometimes it nearly resembles farce, in that it mocks hyper-controlling parenthood by depicting its ultimate expression. At the same time, it asks the audience to examine the intersections of nature and nurture – the three “children” may never have met more than a handful of people in their lives, never read a novel, seen a movie, or listened to the radio, but certain social rhythms emerge all the same, even independent of the blindfolded outsider’s influence. And once such a wild card is introduced, the learned coping mechanisms of the three are proven woefully inadequate. What is in question as Dogtooth closes is how much the human spirit can bear when all defenses are stripped away.