Dogtooth (re-release)
The release of Kinds Of Kindness is a great reason to re-screen this early film by Yorgos Lanthimos; an absurdist drama about an unworldly family whose children are raised in a very protective manner.
When is a child ready to leave home? Not too soon anyway, according to the parents of the three children in DOGTOOTH. Their father has built a high fence around the family house, preventing outside influences from getting through to the teenagers. What they know of the world is mostly lies told to them by their parents. They have no clue about what is going on in the outside world. For instance, they think the cat is the most dangerous animal on earth, which makes for a gory scene in the film. The trio are not allowed to leave this walled world until they have exchanged their fangs. But the father’s rigid regime eventually proves untenable due to outside influences, including ROCKY IV.
In the awkward and bizarre DOGTOOTH, Yorgos Lanthimos (POOR THINGS, THE FAVOURITE, THE LOBSTER) shows how upbringing determines one’s view of the world. Thanks to this film – which received an Oscar nomination in the best foreign-language film category – Lanthimos became the most well-known director of the Greek Weird Wave, a movement in modern Greek cinema characterised by its unconventional, often surreal stories.