Dogtooth

2009 [GREEK]

Action / Drama / Thriller

60
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 93% · 71 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 76% · 10K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.2/10 10 108973 109K

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Plot summary

Three teenagers are confined to an isolated country estate that could very well be on another planet. The trio spend their days listening to endless homemade tapes that teach them a whole new vocabulary. Any word that comes from beyond their family abode is instantly assigned a new meaning. Hence 'the sea' refers to a large armchair and 'zombies' are little yellow flowers. Having invented a brother whom they claim to have ostracized for his disobedience, the uber-controlling parents terrorize their offspring into submission.


Uploaded by: FREEMAN
April 22, 2019 at 12:32 AM

Top cast

Angeliki Papoulia as Older Daughter
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
805.52 MB
1280*548
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 37 min
Seeds 21
1.53 GB
1904*816
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 37 min
Seeds 100+

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Buddy-51 9 / 10

stunning allegory about totalitarianism and propaganda

What if you could be the master of your own universe, able to make everything to your own specifications and liking? And what if, in that universe, you could have absolute control over your subjects, so that, not only would they have to do what you told them to, but you could even go so far as to shape the very way they look at the world?

The unnamed middle-aged protagonist (Christos Stergioglou) of "Dogtooth" has created just such a kingdom for himself and his wife (Michelle Valley), tucked away in a rural area of Greece, where the two of them have raised their children - a boy (Christos Passalis) and two girls (Aggelika Papoulia, Mary Tsoni) who are all now in their late teens - in such complete isolation that the kids have virtually no knowledge of the world that lies beyond the fenced-in little compound in which they live. They know only that it is a dangerous and scary place and that none of them will be able to venture out into it until their dogtooth falls out - which is to say never. They are so misinformed as to how the real world actually works that they think planes are just tiny objects moving through the air, and that if one of those tiny objects were to fall out of the sky and into their yard, the children would be able to pick it up and play with it like a toy. They've also been taught by their colluding parents to believe that prowling cats are a mortal menace to be destroyed on sight. The kids spend much of the day doing repetitive chores, playing meaningless games and being taught an incorrect vocabulary (they use the word "phone" when they really mean "salt," for example). The father regularly pays a young woman (Anna Kalaitzidu) he works with - the only person from the outside world the children are allowed to meet - to come and have sex with his post-pubescent son, and severely beats the kids every time they step out of line.

A stunning allegory about the evils of totalitarianism, "Dogtooth" is somewhat reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" in its basic premise and setup, only here the guiding principle seems to be less about protecting the young ones from the harsh realities of a modern world and more about this one man's finding a way to achieve a kind of apotheosis for himself - making himself a god in the eyes of his children. For not only does he make them reliant on him for all the basic necessities of life, but he's made it so that they accept without question the "truths" of the physical and moral order he's established for them to live by.

The man and his wife have together inverted and perverted the very definition of parenthood. Rather than grooming their children for an adult life in the real world, these parents deliberately infantilize their offspring, making it virtually impossible for them to leave the home and start a life of their own. This ensures that the kids will be there to take care of them for the rest of their lives.

On a broader scale, the movie is a searing indictment of the power of propaganda, showing how easy it is to mislead people and to compel them to do what one wants simply by feeding them false information and, thus, skewing their view of realty and the truth. And isn't this how totalitarian dictatorships are born and sustained? But there's also an innate desire for liberty and independence lurking in the recesses of every human soul that must finally assert itself in a desperate run for freedom, and the movie addresses that reality as well.

The movie is both raw and provocative as it takes on some rather touchy sexual themes - mainly involving incest - that some in the audience may find disturbing and discomfiting to put it mildly. There's also a fair amount of full-frontal nudity, brutal violence and more-than-simulated sex scenes in the movie.

Yorgos Lanthimos' direction is spare and stripped-down, as befits a parable, with off-kilter visual framing that heightens the bizarre nature of the piece.

"Dogtooth" is unnerving, thought-provoking and provocative - and a must-see for the unconventional, adventurous movie-watcher.

Reviewed by teodoramonika 3 / 10

Very disappointing.

3/10.

I am disappointed because I expected much more because of the positive comments. The plot of the film is very interesting and unusual, but it was too slow and at times boring. In the end, I hoped to explain everything, but there was no explanation, it remained undefined, unfinished and without a point. The only thing I really liked about the film was the acting which was good.

Reviewed by timmy_501 9 / 10

The human condition reduced to an absurdity

Dogtooth is not a comedy. The absurd situations in this film became humorous several times but I always choked on my laughter as the subject matter was too serious to be funny. The film is about three young adults who live with their parents in a large but isolated walled compound; the two young women and the young man have no knowledge of the world outside of this place and not much of the world inside of it. In fact the parents deliberately mislead them with nonsense on nearly every topic, for instance they claim that men are commonly killed by cats. Additionally, the siblings are taught the wrong words for certain objects and concepts, thus a "salt shaker" becomes a "telephone." These young people have been given a mostly carefree extended childhood at the cost of ever having any autonomy or knowledge. The parents' theory seems to be that the world is a terrible place and contact with it is more damaging than an isolated life. This Eden-like setting is a blessing and a curse: the characters are free of most problems that face normal people; they have no real responsibility and thus no worry. Still, like any human they yearn for answers and they have a certain half formed desire to be the masters of their own destinies. Further, in what seems to be a recent development the children are seeking an outlet for their sexual needs; while the parents can prevent them from being exposed to any stimulus they cannot stop biological urges from surfacing. Any solution to this problem is bound to upset the already fragile artificial world in which they live.

The implications of this film can be applied to any number of societal relationships. The connection these siblings have with their parents is quite similar to the affiliation between a citizen and his government or a believer and his religious institution. The film implies that for any of these relationships to work the individual must forego intelligence and blindly follow the institution although this sort of obedience is contrary to human nature. At the same time, the few people in charge must play their part perfectly in order to keep the trust they've been given; this proves just as difficult for the leaders as the followers, here for example when the parents allow themselves things forbidden to the children and inevitably draw unwanted attention.

Dogtooth is a film that raises all sorts of questions about the individual and the society he is forced to play a part in and it encapsulates these questions into a deceptively simple plot. Wisely, rather than answer these questions the film leaves these questions to be pondered by the viewer even as it neatly reduces the entire question to the absurd.

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