Dogtooth

Dogtooth is as strange a film I have ever seen. In Greek and nominated for 2010's Best Foreign Language Film, it's truly a miracle that the Academy would ever have considered Dogtooth. Not for its quality does this astound me, but for its content. For, Dogtooth is at times sexually explicit, disturbing, and starkly frightening. There is no real story to Dogtooth, but rather a portion of time within an odd family. Odd...the word can't even begin to describe the family. The parents teach their three teenage children words. Except that the words they teach them are for the wrong things. Zombie means a small yellow flower, pussy means a large light. As the film progresses and the nature of the children is discovered, these words start to make sense. For, they are all words that the teens will never experience within the confines of the home. In their house, strange and practically sadistic games are played, a whore is brought in to quench the sexual thirst of the teenage boy, and when a cat enters the courtyard and the teenaged boy kills in with garden sheers, the event is explained to the teens as totally acceptable because cats are evil creatures. Now, at times the film becomes languid, and there is quite a bit of question to be raised whether the film is being weird just to be edgy, and where the film is supposed to be going. These issues bothered me, but the graphic quality of the film made it seem cavernous and lonely. Dogtooth is a good film, although it might be too much for some.
Dogtooth: ★★★1/2