Dogtooth (2010)

Excellent, a Must See

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

From the very start this is worrying and bewildering. Gradually we become to understand what is going on but it remains worrying. Quite right too because this, allowing for some artistic licence, is what happens when a parent decides to rule supreme and the other parent goes along. Most often we hear of such phenomena in parts of the US, often with a particular religious involvement/justification. But here carried to absolute extreme, before our very eyes, is the full effect of 'loving parents' who cannot allow the outside world, in any form, to challenge their own idea of 'bringing up children'. Some have referred to this as 'amusing', well I smiled once or twice but basically, this is horrifying throughout. Albeit fascinating.

The most twisted and revolting film I have ever seen. This film is sick but an interesting study in human nature and also unfortunately entertaining. ScreenJunkies put this on my radar. I honestly do not know what to say, humans can be this sick and twisted. Just look at what is going on in Burma right now - so yeah, morally evil stuff happens a lot but now the next level horror has found its way into mainstream entertainment over the past ten years or so. Does that mean as a society, we are changing to normalize the horrors of the world as it continues to drop into the lowest common denominator where was I? Whatever. We're finished here.

"Dogtooth", the second feature by Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, became his international breakthrough. Terrific and unimaginably weird.The strength of the film is the way writer-director Lanthimos and his co-writer Efthymis Filippou creates characters and an environment that make you feel that whatever happens in this crazy setting, you believe it - and even understand WHY the characters act and react the way they do. The underlying tension and drama keeps you focused on every detail through the film and the end is just brilliant.

Having recently seen Yorgos Lanthimos' "The lobster", I was well aware of what to expect from this early job of his. Maybe "The lobster" weakened the punch that only the first film from a director can deliver. Perhaps altering the viewing order would have swapped my opinion in both films. Or perhaps I simply find Lanthimo's essay in family bonds, seclusion and education flat and too unnatural.Yorgos Lanthimos' fresh breath in cinema is always welcome. The weird and tense atmosphere of Dogtooth is masterfully crafted, if sometimes over the line and beyond. The overuse of explicit sexual themes and some graphic scenes may drive some people away. While some are there for a reason, many are thrown in for pure shock value.Yet it is the forced innexpressivenes of the actors that bothers me the most. Trying to recreate a mechanical, unaffective behavior of three teenagers raised in seclusion, their lack of expression goes often over the top failing to create any kind of response on the viewer. The lack of sense in some of the parents' actions and the children's lack of any analytical skill doesn't help a film that goes too far to reiterate the same concept over and over.Dogtooth's open ending may fit best a film of his kind, but ultimately leaves the viewer with too hollow a sensation of non- conclusion after over ninety minutes of reiteration.