Dogtooth

johnny_ultimate

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1379182/

You know those times every so often when a film catches you completely by surprise, and feels like nothing you've ever seen before? Dogtooth is one of those films, a weird, funny and disturbing creation that defies any sort of traditional labels. The film concerns a mother and father who have locked their three (now grown up) kids out from the real world, no matter how difficult and bizarre a goal it seems. They have been given their own education (the parents even making up their own definitions for words they think may have a 'bad' influence on their children) and the only outside influence is a woman who the father brings home every so often to 'socialise' with his caged in kids.

Everything else is best left up to the film to explain and describe (seeing how the characters react to perfectly normal situations is half the fun of this), but the film really and truly isn't like anything else I've ever seen - gloriously strange and full of character. The atmosphere and story are entirely unique, and the director Giorgos Lanthimos has a film that is both surprising, shocking and laugh out loud funny. Just saw that it is on in the IFI next month (saw it at the film festival, and was definitely the highlight of the few films I got to see) so highly recommended - it is the kind of movie that reminded me how special and surprising cinema can be.

kraggy

Johnny you summed up my sentiments on Dogtooth pretty effectively there. And like you said, it's best just to leave a lot of the explanation and descriptions for people to find out for themselves as one wouldn't know where to begin.

It is certainly one of the most original, leftfield, from-out-of-nowhere films I have ever seen and I am still thinking about it days after having seen it. It's also, in some ways, one of the most shocking films I've seen.

Very surprised there hasn't been more discussion about it on here. It's still on in the Screen in Dublin if folk want to have a look, which you should really do. It will be the most memorable film you see all year.

johnny_ultimate

Ah, finally someone else who has seen it I've been shouting the praises of this film for months, but still haven't persuaded any of my friends to see it! This might be slightly hyperbolic, but it definitely is one of those rare examples that remind me why cinema is such a wonderful artform. I have nothing (well, not quite nothing :pac:) against mainstream cinema, but this is worth going out of your way to see, as no general release has been anywhere near as surprising this year. It's early days yet, and I don't like listing favourites, but this is tied for my favourite of the year along with Evangelion 2.0. If I see a few more films anywhere near this good over the next few months, I'll be an extremely happy fellow

monkeyfudge

Went to see it last night (it's not a good date movie by the way, eek!)

But I absolutely loved it.

Really liked the way it was shot too. All very static and gave a lot of room for the actors to perform. There's way too much cutting and chopping in films these days.

And as funny as the ending is it probably is a bit of a let down after so much build up.

njals_saga

Best movie I've seen all year.
Kind of scary the way it represents the misuse of parental power. Also satirisies overprotective parenting in a funny way.
Quite shocking though.

Fysh

Good lord, that was strange. I saw it last night and only got around to collecting my thoughts and writing a review of it just now.

The only other films I can think of that match it in terms of dementedly specific vision are Takashi Miike's more off-the-wall creations. Which is a good thing, I think, even if I did find certain scenes (

particularly the one with the kitten in the garden

) considerably more uncomfortable than they necessarily should be...

monkeyfudge

A lot of it reminded me of of Bad Boy Bubby without the second half.

Sugarlumps

Awful film.

Eirebear

Meant to reply to this after watching it a couple of weeks ago.

I found it utterly compelling despite spending the whole time wondering why i was putting myself through the pain!

I think the film hit a personal nerve for me due to my wife's line of work were she comes into regular contact with abused/neglected kids and their families, and whilst obviously not as extreme, the stories she comes home with arent entirely disimilar to this one.

From a film point of view i thought it was put together very well, the lack of any prior explanation about the family adds to the discomfort felt by the viewer because for the first while its almost hard to digest and realise the extent of the mental abuse the children have suffered.
To this end, the little things that pop up are slightly comedic such as the

Misinformed education, "Can you pass the telephone please mum?"

but as the realisation sets in it becomes extremely disturbing.

It brilliantly highlights the role of the parent in shaping their kids lives, and how mental abuse can have consequences every bit as dire as physical.

johnny_ultimate

Sugarlumps wrote: »

Awful film.

Care to elaborate why? I'm curious to find out why people don't like this film. It is quite 'out there', granted, but why awful?

Decuc500

I saw Dogtooth on its release and I really disliked it but that was a few months ago now so I'm trying to remember why.

Watching it just made me feel uncomfortable. The whole experience made me feel nauseous, which I gather was the point. But what's the point in making a film where the emotion it creates in the viewer is disgust?

There's a certain type of arthouse film designed to shock by directors like Haneke and Von Trier that I just can't stand anymore. Maybe if I was in my early 20's again I'd admire that stuff but it just annoys me now.

Also Dogtooth bored me. The film didn't engage me at all. I didn't care what happened to the characters at the end and if it's a pretentious arthouse film or a big budget entertainment, that's a bad sign.