"Dogtooth" (2010)

Dogtooth is a fiercely original and highly bizarre film. It's steeped in a disturbing, uncomfortable, almost Lynch-ian sense of humor. The film's brutal, uncanny surrealness derives from its world-building, establishing the dynamics of a codependent, cult-like family. The father (Christos Stergioglou) has shut his three children (Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis) off from the outside world, causing them to become stunted, barely functioning adults who have no conception of the universe beyond the deeply skewed vision of the world their parents have sold them on. The father's assertion of dominance at all costs at times seems to come from a real, twisted, paternal concern over protecting his progeny from the evils of the world, but it stems even more largely from an absolute, sociopathic need to be in control. The children have never left their home, and have been mislead about nearly every facet of nearly everything around them; even the definition of words have been re-written to keep them sheltered.   

The foundation of this control starts to crack when the father starts bringing in a woman to sleep with his son -- to subdue him and his sexual urges. It's part and parcel with the unholy sense of parental responsibility and authority, which manifests itself in weird, specific forms of censorship and revision. This is perhaps most strikingly seen in the fictional missing brother the siblings keep referring to and attempting to communicate with; the parents claim he left for the outside world and the evils just beyond the home's compound-like fences did him in.  

Underneath the dark premise is some biting satire about the modern increase in individuals pushing off the responsibilities of adulthood further and further, and the parents who encourage the behavior. The satire, however, is underneath a purposely opaque facade. It's also easy to forget the social commentary on occasion as the film becomes excruciatingly painful to watch, pierced with moments of heavy violence and unnerving indoctrination.

 Grade: ★★★