Review: Dogtooth (2009)

Wed Oct 28 13:52:52 EDT 2009

DOGTOOTH  ("Kynodontas")
Directed by: Giorgios Lanthimos
Review by:  Tristán Harvey E. White
Rating: (0 to *****):    **** (four stars)

Greek cinema has never really "made it" on the world stage. This is
extraordinary, considering its geographical location: an EU country,
on the Mediterranean, and surrounded by behemoths of the arthouse
cinema: Turkey to the East, Italy to the West, with Romania not too
far to the North. You would have thought that Greece would be churning
out the movies, especially considering the successes of her bitter
rival, Turkey. But in Greece there is no equivalent of a Nuri Bilge
Ceylan, and hardly any films of note since their golden age of the
1950s, of which the most famous director, Mihalis Kakogiannis (Michael
Cacoyannis), is actually from Cyprus. Greece has never won a "foreign
language" Oscar before, and was in fact last nominated for one in 1977
with IPHIGENIA (losing, of course, to France's sickly sweet LA VIE
DEVANT SOI (MADAME ROSA), which was always going to win, given its
lead actress - Simone Signoret - and its somewhat nauseating and
patronising storyline). Who directed Iphigenia? Ah, that damn Cypriot
again, Cacoyannis.
In spite of the fact that Melina Mercouri was the inspirational
Minister for Culture from 1981 to 1989 and then again from 1993 to
1994, and did a lot to promote Greek cinema within her country, Greece
have had not a single Oscar nod since that 1977 nomination although,
to be brutally honest, Greece was robbed in 2005, as POLITIKI KOUZINA
(A TOUCH OF SPICE) really deserved to be nominated that year. Not that
it would have had a chance, sadly, since had it been nominated it
would have been up against Germany's DER UNTERGANG (DOWNFALL) and the
eventual winner, Spain's MAR ADENTRO (THE SEA INSIDE).  We'll ignore
the little fact that POLITIKI KOUZINA director, Tassos Boulmetis, was
born in Turkey, shall we?...
Why such a long-winded introduction to this review? Well, Greece have
produced a film, at last, which may actually make more than a hundred
bucks with change in cinemas outside Greece, and may actually be shown
down your local cinema in Milton Keynes or Massachusetts. DOGTOOTH is
really interesting, has been critically acclaimed at the London Film
Festival (where I saw it at an almost packed cinema in Greenwich, near
the Cutty Sark and the Royal Observatory). It's dark, it's funny, it's
intellectually stimulating, it has sex and violence, and has won so
far Un Certain Regard at Cannes no less, as well as major prizes in
Sarajevo and Sitges festivals. What a start!

Without giving too much away, DOGTOOTH tells the story of a family
trapped by a megalomaniac father figure. There's a son, an older
daughter and a younger daughter (we're never given any of their
names). The kids have grown up completely isolated from the real
world. They are terrified of leaving the house because their father
has told them that if they do, man's worst enemy (cats) will kill
them. Only he can leave the house, because he has lost his dogtooth
(canine) and it has grown back again. Only then, according to his
warped and terrifying 'version' of real life outside their garden
walls, will the cats not kill humans. If there is any influence from
outside (such as an aeroplane flying overhead) the father cunningly
pretends they are models and occasionally pretends that they fall into
the garden, so as not to confuse his naïve children about the outside
world. Whenever they hear, somehow, a word about something from the
outside world, Mamma (a willing participant in this exercise) and
Pappa give them alternative meanings for the words. The "sea" is
explained as being somewhere to sit, a "zombie" is a small yellow
flower and a "keyboard" is another word for the vagina. Fish are
mysteriously caught in the family swimming pool by hunter-gatherer
Pappa.

In fact, there is no interaction with anyone from the outside world,
except Christina (the only person whose name is given to us in the
movie). Christina works as a security guard at Pappa's factory and, to
supplement her income, she is brought (blindfolded) to the house to
have sex, every now and then, with the son, who is now an adolescent
and understandably has urges. When Christina gets bored of the tedious
sex with the son and wishes to have an orgasm of her own, she involves
one of the daughters, and this changes the whole dynamic within the
house.

To say more would spoil the movie, although most of this does occur in
the first act. Normally, the premise of DOGTOOTH would be too
unbelievable for us to comprehend - it is occasionally even billed as
a "fantasy" film. But thanks to the terrible news lately - Fritzl in
Austria, Mongelli in Turin, not to mention equally despicable stories
from the "Sheffield Fritzl" and, lest we forget, the whole bizarre
story surrounding Jaycee Lee Dugard in the States - we can actually
watch DOGTOOTH without it appearing as bizarre as it should. We have
read so much about these awful stories that the DOGTOOTH family do not
appear to be as unbelievable as they probably would have appeared to
be had the movie been released just two years ago. Therefore, this
movie has really grasped the zeitgeist.

To be honest, director Yorgos Lanthimos has been very lucky indeed.
Or, indeed, very astute. The topic of this film is hot, it is
graspable. It could do very, very well indeed on the world circuit. It
already is doing really well, for a Greek movie at least.

The film somehow reminds me of a Dogme 95 film - the camera-work, the
narrative structure - and in its candidness is occasionally
reminiscent of Lars von Trier's IDIOTERNE (THE IDIOTS). In fact, I
would bet that von Trier would very much approve and enjoy this film,
and people who like von Trier's films will also very much enjoy it.
Storywise, though, this film is fairly unique, though of course we
have seen similar premises in M. Night Shyamalan's THE VILLAGE and
Ripstein's EL CASTILLO DE LA PUREZA (CASTLE OF PURITY).

There are some moments which some audiences may find a little
distasteful, a couple of very realistically filmed moments of
violence, and some more prudish viewers may find the sex and nudity
not to their taste. People who don't like loose ends and like to have
every question answered for them will not like it either; I for one
thought the ending was magisterial but it will not be to everybody's
taste. But all in all, this should have been a shoe-in for Oscar
nomination in the foreign film category. Particularly following its
success in Cannes, many of the Academy members who whittle the sixty-
seven films down to five nominees will have already seen Dogtooth at
other festivals, so will be much more likely to nominate it than, for
argument's sake, the latest Sinhalese road-movie from Sri Lanka.

In fact, I would have almost certainly bet money that DOGTOOTH would
have been one of the five nominees (along with, perhaps, Haneke's DAS
WEIßE BAND (THE WHITE RIBBON) from Germany, Audiard's UN PROPHÈTE (A
PROPHET) from France, plus perhaps Xavier Dolan's J'AI TUÉ MA MÈRE (I
KILLED MY MOTHER) from Canada; finally, surely one almost obligatory
film from one of the "developing" countries. But I think DOGTOOTH
would have been up there and, considering last year's unexpected win
for Japan's OKURIBITO (DEPARTURES), which beat the likes of DER BAADER
MEINHOF KOMPLEX from Germany, ENTRE LES MURS (THE CLASS) from France
and WALTZ WITH BASHIR from Israel, anything could have happened.
Websites tended to agree, with many tipping DOGTOOTH for Oscar
success, including the In Contention site. It looked even more likely
once New York based Kino Intl had secured it for US distribution.

But then, shock horror. The Greek Film authorities, in spite of
officially choosing DOGTOOTH to represent their country at the Oscars,
reversed their original decision and chose Nikos Sekeris's OI SKLAVOI
STA DESMA TOUS (SLAVES IN THEIR BONDS), a movie which, to date, has
not been distributed outside of Greece, and which didn't even win at
Greece's own Thessaloniki Film Festival, the only festival of any note
to which this film has so far been submitted (indeed, that honour went
to the very short Iranian black and white film AAN JA).

I have not seen Sekeris's movie yet and international distribution
companies are hardly scrambling over themselves to get their hands on
it, so it may not be easy to get to see it here in London. Not that
the story really appeals to me: a period drama about the bourgeoisie
in Corfu in the early 20th century. It may be good. But I doubt
whether it will be chosen by the Academy because I doubt that many of
the voters will get much of a chance even to see this film. Whereas
many of them would have already seen DOGTOOTH at Cannes and many other
festivals around the world.

A lot of good films have been left out of contention. There was
general surprise that Spain did not even have Almodóvar's ABRAZOS
ROTOS (BROKEN EMBRACES) on their three-film shortlist, and Italy's
decision to submit BAARIA, Giuseppe Tornatore's film in the Sicilian
language, over VINCERE, Marco Bellocchio's critically acclaimed story
about Mussolini's secret lover and their son Albino, caused some
surprises among the Italian moviegoing cognoscenti. But, at least,
Greece had shown some balls and had chosen DOGTOOTH. A week later,
they changed their mind. This is almost worse than Almodóvar's snub;
Yorgos Lanthimos must have felt very disappointed indeed and sadly
Greece appears to have let slip their best chance of being nominated
again for the first time since 1977. France's 34 nominations and 9
wins and Italy's 27 nominations and 10 wins are looking even more hazy
for the Greeks.

All in all, DOGTOOTH is a great film, reminiscent of the Dogme 95
style (but not, I must stress, an actual Dogme 95 film). It's fun,
it's ballsy, it's shocking, and some of the scenes will stay with you
for a long, long time.

And, tragically, it will *not* be representing Greece at the Oscars on
7 March 2010.

Reviewer:  Tristán White
***********************************************************************
94 minutes.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1379182/
DOGTOOTH went on general release in Greece on 22 October, and will be
distributed in France from 2 December 2009. Verve Pictures are
anticipating that the film will be released in the UK in April 2010,
and Kino Intl will soon be announcing a date for general release in
the US and Canada, so it should be appearing at a picturehouse near
you soon.