Cast: Christos Stergioglou, Michelle Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis, Anna Kalaitzidou.

Director: Giorgos Lanthimos

Screenwriters: Giorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou

This film will not be to everyone’s tastes; those who are rather sensitive will find it rather tough-going, but those who can stomach it and like their films made by auteur-provocateurs such as Michael Haneke, Bernardo Bertolucci or Lars Von Trier will embrace it unequivocally. Equally if you like your films challenging, dark and memorable, you need look no further.

Dogtooth‘s story concerns an unnamed family – Mother (Michelle Valley), Father (Christos Stergioglou) and their two daughters Older Daughter (Aggeliki Papoulia), Younger Daughter (Mary Tsoni) and Son (Christos Pasalis) – who lives in exile on their country estate. Only their strict patriarch father is allowed to leave to manage a factory in order to fund the family. The parents believe that contact with the outside world will contaminate them. They even give their children a different vocabulary (‘keyboard’ for vagina, ‘zombie’ for small yellow flower etc) to control them further, and fabricate a brother who disobeyed them and was ostracized. The only outsider allowed in is Christina (Anna Kalitzdou) who comes into take care of the son’s sexual needs but eventually takes advantage of the sisters too. The illicit behaviour initiated by Christina and the demands of the father soon brings about shocking (and in one scene incestuous) consequences which tear the family apart.

From this premise we get a stark study of what it is to live in a world created and controlled by misguided parental authority. We see that the innocence the parents so wish to maintain is not very innocent at all. This is made clear from the beginning when we hear one of the sisters challenging the other to put their hand under a hot water tap. It soon becomes clear that this challenge (like the games played  in The Dreamers) is just the start of the masochistic games they play with each-other, as we see them later challenging each-other do dangerous things such as seeing who can wake up first from anaesthesia. The film is also punctuated by moments of sudden violence which vividly show the damaging effects seclusion is having on them.  So we see the son stabbing a cat with garden shears because they were taught they were predators and with the same shears we see the sister cutting her brother’s arm. In one telling scene we also see the younger sister cutting bits off a Barbie and screaming.

The father, who’s mainly responsible for their situation, meanwhile, is cold and demanding and turns everything into a competition for his family, whether it be collecting the most stickers or holding their breath underwater the longest (the constant shots of the swimming pool also acting as a possible metaphor for the foetal innocence he wishes them to remain in). He also coolly tells them outrageous lies, for no apparent reason, such as that their grandfather is Frank Sinatra and he viciously beats them as punishment for disobedience, in one scene hitting the elder sister with a videotape (lent to her by Christina) she was forbidden to watch. His relationship with his wife is also satirical in its abnormality with one disturbing but funny scene showing them making dutiful love while listening to music on a personal cassette player. Christina’s part in introducing the family to sexuality is equally disturbing, from the awkward dispassionate sex with the son to the exploitative sexual games she plays with the sisters, making one sister lick her for ‘treats’ such as hair gel (an act the bored sisters soon readily utilise on others).

The film then shows the tragic consequences of taking overprotection to its extreme and serves as a warning for the increasingly paranoid and demanding society- where children are frequently told to stay indoors and are put under pressure to be the best- we live in. It is not an easy to film watch but it is certainly insightful and rewarding and also features a talented cast to watch out for.

By Priscilla Eyles

Dogtooth is released 23 April courtesy of Verve Pictures.