Jump to content

Dogtooth (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lapost (talk | contribs) at 13:28, 2 February 2011 (→‎Accolades: added award). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Dogtooth
Theatrical release poster
Directed byYorgos Lanthimos
Written byYorgos Lanthimos
Efthymis Filippou
Produced byIraklis Mavroidis
Athina Rachel Tsangari
Yorgos Tsourianis
StarringChristos Stergioglou
Michelle Valley
Aggeliki Papoulia
Mary Tsoni
Christos Passalis
CinematographyThimios Bakatatakis
Edited byYorgos Mavropsaridis
Production
company
Boo Productions
Distributed byFeelgood Entertainment
Release dates
Running time
96 minutes
CountryTemplate:Film Greece
LanguageGreek

Dogtooth (Greek: Κυνόδοντας, [Kynodontas] Error: {{Transliteration}}: missing language / script code (help)) is a 2009 Greek drama film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, about a husband and wife who keep their children imprisoned within their house and pretend that this is normal. It stars Christos Stergioglou, Michelle Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni and Christos Passalis. Dogtooth is Lanthimos' second feature film as solo director.[1] The film won the Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and has been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards.[2] Lanthimos reacted to the nomination by saying "this was very unexpected. It makes me and my collaborators extremely happy".[3]

Plot

A married couple and their three young adult children, a son and two daughters, live at the outskirts of a city in a large compound with a garden and a swimming pool. A tall fence surrounds the property and the children have never been on the other side of it, for they are intentionally cut off from the outside world by their parents. They are tricked into believing that airplanes that fly overhead are toys that fall to the ground, and taught different meanings for everyday words. For example, they are taught that a "zombie" is "a small yellow flower," the "sea" is a chair and the "telephone" is the salt shaker.[3] The parents show no sign to the children that their experiences are extraordinary and they promise that each child will be ready to venture outside the compound once she or he has lost a dogtooth. To guarantee the children's submission, the parents contrast them to an unseen brother who is said to live just outside the compound, where he has been ostracized for his disobedience.

The only non-family member to come into the house is a young woman called Christina, who works as a security guard at the father's factory. She is driven by the father to the compound – travelling both ways blindfolded – where she performs sexual favors for the son. Dissatisfied with his preference for intercourse, Christina seeks oral sex from the elder daughter in exchange for a headband. The elder daughter obliges but does not recognize the significance of performing cunnilingus. Later, she gives the headband to her younger sister, in exchange for being licked on the shoulder, which is marked by an unexplained scar.

The father visits a dog training facility and demands to have his dog returned. The trainer refuses because the dog has only reached the second stage of a five-stage training. He lectures the father on the merits of retaining a dog in training until its training is complete, and warns against the untimely cessation of training. He poses the question: "Do we want an animal or a friend?" The father is impatient to receive the dog, as he expresses to his wife. When the arrival of the dog is considered imminent, the parents tell the children that the mother will soon give birth to "two children and a dog", but promise that the birth of the children can be foregone if the son and daughters show improvement in their behavior.

One day the siblings are terrified by the appearance of a stray cat in the garden. Considering it a threat, the son ambushes and kills it with a pair of pruning shears. The parents use this incident as an excuse to eliminate the mythical brother and reinforce the children's fears of the outside world. When the father comes home, he has shredded his clothes and covered himself in fake blood, claiming that the unseen brother had been mauled to death by a cat, a most fearsome creature. The children are taught to get down on all fours and bark maniacally as a precaution against cats. A memorial service is held for the brother, in which the family members lob flowers over the fence, in mourning.

Christina is again brought to the compound to perform her services and she once more requests oral sex from the elder daughter. However, the daughter rejects Christina's offer of hair gel as a reward, choosing instead the two films in Christina's bag (Rocky and Jaws). Christina refuses to hand over the films, but eventually agrees under threat of blackmail. The elder daughter watches the films at night, and they have a significant influence on her. She recreates scenes from the films and quotes them in her free moments. Later, the father finds the video tapes and punishes the elder daughter by beating her over the head with them. Then he goes to Christina's flat and beats her over the head with her own video-cassette player. As he leaves, he curses her future children to be corrupted by "bad influences."

With no outsider to satisfy the son's sexual urges, the parents allow him to choose one of the daughters for his carnal needs. After fondling both sisters simultaneously in the bath with his eyes closed, he chooses the elder, who is later dressed and prepared by the mother for the sexual encounter. The elder daughter is visibly uncomfortable during intercourse, and afterwards recites a threatening passage from Rocky to her brother.

The elder daughter's agitation begins to show during the children's dance performance staged for the parents' wedding anniversary. She dances to exhaustion and then devours her dessert. Later, in the bathroom, she smashes her face with a dumbbell to knock out a dogtooth. Smiling and bloody, she runs undetected through the garden and to the car, where she lets herself into the trunk (boot) and closes it over her. The father discovers her blood and tooth fragments in the sink that night. He runs outside the compound and searches in the tall grass while the other three remain just inside the grounds, barking like dogs on all fours. In the morning, the son and younger daughter hold each other and kiss, while the father drives to work, unwittingly carrying the elder daughter in her hiding place. In the final shot, the camera lingers on the trunk and finally cuts to black.

Cast

  • Christos Stergioglou as father
  • Michelle Valley as mother
  • Aggeliki Papoulia as older daughter
  • Mary Tsoni as younger daughter
  • Christos Passalis as son
  • Anna Kalaitzidou as Christina

Production

Dogtooth was the feature film début for Boo Productions, an Athens-based advertising company. The Greek Film Center supported the project with about 200,000 euro and much of the production was done with help from volunteers.[4] Anna Kalaitzidou and Christos Passalis were stage actors who were cast after having worked with Lanthimos earlier. Mary Tsoni was not a professional actress, but a singer in a punk band.[5] Lanthimos had an open approach to both acting and visual style, as he thought it would look fake if he involved too much in the details. It wasn't until the rehearsals started that he began to develop the idea of how the film should be shot, a style where he tried to combine a realistic environment with "really strict framing and a cool, surreal look to go with the narrative".[6]

Release

The film premiered on 18 May at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.[7] It was released in Greece on 11 November the same year through Feelgood Entertainment.[8][9] Verve Pictures picked up the British distribution rights and launched it on 23 April 2010.[6] The American premiere was on 25 June 2010, managed by Kino International.[10]

Critical response

As of January 2011 the film had a 92% approval rating, based on 48 English-language reviews, at Rotten Tomatoes.[11] The Scotsman's Alistair Harkness hailed director Lanthimos as "a bold new voice on the world cinema scene, someone who might soon be elevated to a similar position as those twin pillars of Euro provocation: Lars von Trier and Michael Haneke."[12] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated it four out of five, and was one of many critics who agreed that the film was technically well made. Bradshaw described it as "superbly shot, with some deadpan, elegant compositions, and intentionally skewiff framings".[13] Roger Ebert wrote for Chicago Sun-Times: "Lanthimos tells his story with complete command of visuals and performances. His cinematography is like a series of family photographs of a family with something wrong with it. His dialogue sounds composed entirely of sentences memorized from tourist phrase books."[14] Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times complimented the "unaffected simplicity that recalls the dead-aim haphazard compositions of photographer William Eggleston."[15] A. O. Scott of The New York Times wrote: "The static wide-screen compositions are beautiful and strange, with the heads and limbs of the characters frequently cropped. The light is gauzy and diffuse, helping to produce an atmosphere that is insistently and not always unpleasantly dreamlike. You might think of paintings by Balthus or maybe Alex Katz, though the implied stories in those pictures are more genuinely evocative and haunting than the actual narrative of Dogtooth."[16]

Beyond aesthetics the verdicts were more divided. Scott continued by calling the film "a conversation piece. Though the conversation may not proceed quite into the depths of psychosexual analysis that Dogtooth seems to invite. Your post-viewing discourse may be more along the lines of: 'What was that?' 'I don’t know. Weird.' 'Yeah.' [shudder]. 'Weird.'"[16] Olsen saw Dogtooth's substance as "part enigma, part allegory and even part sci-fi in its creation of a completely alternate reality."[15] Ebert wrote: "The message I took away was: God help children whose parents insanely demand unquestioning obedience to their deranged standards."[14] Bradshaw elaborated his interpretation: "It is a film about the essential strangeness of something society insists is the benchmark of normality: the family, a walled city state with its own autocratic rule and untellable secrets."[13] Several reviewers, such as Harkness and Bradshaw, made comparisons to the 2008 Fritzl case, although they pointed out that the screenplay had been written before the case emerged.[12][13] The Americans Ebert and Scott made references to homeschooling.[14][16] Olsen's conclusion was that "as a film, it's pure and singular, but it's not quite fully formed enough to be what one could call truly visionary."[15] Harkness on the other hand thought the film was exemplary in its whole execution: "The good thing here is that unlike the work of some of the more seasoned European practitioners of provocation, none of Lanthimos's choices feels particularly egregious. This is not a film designed simply to shock in the way von Trier's work often does, and nor does it have that annoyingly prescriptive, punitive air of superiority favoured by Haneke's films. Dogtooth's oddness is as organic and playful as its impact is incisor sharp."[12]

In its home-country, Greek critic Dimitris Danikas gave the film a rating of eight out of ten ("with enthusiasm") and caracterizes it as "black, surreal, nightmarish". He believes that Dogtooth of 2009 is as important for Greek cinema as Theodoros Angelopoulos' Reconstruction of 1970.[17] He goes on to say "Lanthimos composes and goes from one level to another as a wildcat-creator. Constantly and continuously maintaining the same rigorous style. Hence the aphasia; hence the uniformity; hence the submission and the scheduled mass culture; hence also the serial killer; hence, however, the disobedience, the anarchy. I said it at the beginning: the Dogtooth with the surrealism of Buñuel. With the scalpel of Haneke; with the underground horror of a thriller without splater. Perfect."[17] Danikas caracterized Dogtooth's Academy Award nomination as "the greatest Greek triumph of the last years".[18] Columnist Dimitris Bouras, writing for Kathimerini, refers to "the beneficial effects that the prestigious award could have" and believes that the nomination reveals three interesting facts: 1) In Greece we need to be extrovert (and not only in cinema), 2) Exportable product is whatever has an identity, 3) Dogtooth's nomination is like an investment – manna from heaven of Hollywood for the developing Greek cinema."[19]

Greek Prime Minister, George Papandreou, ended the Cabinet meeting on January 25 by saying "The news that the film Dogtooth by Yorgos Lanthimos is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film goes far beyond the world of cinema, arts and culture. It concerns the whole country, its people, the new generation of artists who follow the motto "Yes, we can do it" during difficult times."[20] He continued by saying "I won't say that the news shows that miracles happen, because the success of Yorgos Lanthimos is based on hard work, talent and his endless potential. Features that characterize the creative forces which lead Greece to a new era; forces which deserve our support and they will have it. Bravo Yorgos."[20]

Accolades

The film was chosen unanimously by the Greek Film Committee to represent Greece at the Oscars.[21]

Event Category Winner/Nominee Won
Academy Awards[22][23] Best Foreign Language Film Yorgos Lanthimos Nominee[24]
British Independent Film Awards[25][26] Best Foreign Film Yorgos Lanthimos No
Cannes Film Festival[27] Prix Un Certain Regard Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Dublin International Film Festival[28] Dublin Film Critics Award Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Estoril Film Festival[29] Grande Premio Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Greek Film Academy Awards[30][31] Best Feature Film Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Best Director Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Best Screenplay Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou Yes
Best Actress Aggeliki Papoulia No
Best Actor Christos Sterioglou No
Best Supporting Actor Christos Passalis Yes
Best Post-Production Yorgos Mavropsaridis Yes
Award for Special Effects and Film Innovation George and Roulis Alahouzos No
Ljubljana International Film Festival[32][33] Kingfisher Award Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Mar del Plata Film Festival Best Film Yorgos Lanthimos No
Montréal Festival of New Cinema[34] Feature Film Award Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
RiverRun International Film Festival[35] Best Director Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Sarajevo Film Festival[36][37] Special Prize of the Jury Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Heart of Sarajevo (Best Actress) Aggeliki Papoulia and Mary Tsoni Yes
Sitges Film Festival[38] Best Motion Picture Fantastic Award Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Citizen Kane Award for Best Directorial Revelation Yorgos Lanthimos Yes
Best Film Yorgos Lanthimos No
Stockholm International Film Festival[39] Bronze Horse Yorgos Lanthimos Yes

See also

References

  1. ^ "Kynodontas (Dogtooth)". Cannes Film Festival. festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-05-23.
  2. ^ "83rd Academy Awards Nominations Announced" (PDF). oscars.org. 2011-01-25. Retrieved 25 January 2011.
  3. ^ a b "Dogtooth, Directed by Yorgis Lanthimos, Nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film Category for the 83rd Academy Awards". Kino International. Retrieved 2011-01-27.
  4. ^ Katsareas, Eftehia (2009-12-03). "The surprising Greek film winning fans abroad". cnn.com. CNN. Retrieved 2010-05-08.
  5. ^ Eyles, Priscilla (2010-04-26). "Interview: Giorgos Lanthimos, director of Dogtooth". Sound Screen. Retrieved 2010-05-08.
  6. ^ a b Jahn, Pamela (2010-04-05). "Dogtooth: Interview with Yorgos Lanthimos". Electric Sheep Magazine. Retrieved 2010-05-08.
  7. ^ "Dogtooth – Press Kit" (PDF). Cannes Film Festival. festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-05-23.
  8. ^ "Film profile: Dogtooth". Cineuropa. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  9. ^ Proimakis, Joseph (2010-09-02). "Interview with Irini Souganidou • Distributor, Feelgood Entertainment". Cineuropa. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  10. ^ "Dogtooth". indieWire. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  11. ^ "Rotten Tomatoes: Dogtooth (Kynodontas)". rottentomatoes.com. Flixter. Retrieved 2010-12-05.
  12. ^ a b c Harkness, Alistair (2010-04-24). "Film Review: Dogtooth". The Scotsman. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  13. ^ a b c Bradshaw, Peter (2010-04-22). "Dogtooth". The Guardian. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  14. ^ a b c Ebert, Roger (2010-07-07). "Dogtooth". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  15. ^ a b c Olsen, Mark (2011-01-07). "Movie review: 'Dogtooth'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  16. ^ a b c Scott, A. O. (2010-06-25). "A Sanctuary and a Prison". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  17. ^ a b Danikas, Dimitris (2009-10-22). "Greek leadership". TA NEA Online. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
  18. ^ Danikas, Dimitris (2011-01-26). "Dogtooth Nominated for an Oscar". TA NEA Online. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
  19. ^ Bouras, Dimitris (2011-01-31). "Investing Extroversion". Kathimerini. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
  20. ^ a b Zoumboulakis, Yannis (2011-01-26). "Dogtooth biting his uncle Oscar". TO BHMA Online. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
  21. ^ "Η ταινία «Κυνόδοντας» πηγαίνει στα Oσκαρ". enet.gr. Retrieved 2011-01-27.
  22. ^ "Greece Submits "Dogtooth" for Foreign Language Film Entry @ Academy Awards". Greek Reporter Hollywood. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  23. ^ "Beautiful but doomed: Greece submits 'Dogtooth' for Oscars". incontention.com. Retrieved 2010-09-28.
  24. ^ "Nominees for the 83rd Academy Awards". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-01-25.
  25. ^ "The Moet British Independent Film Awards Annoucnce Nominations and Jury for 13th Edition". bifa.org. Retrieved 2010-11-21.
  26. ^ "British Independent Film Awards: 2010 Winners". bifa.org. Retrieved 2010-12-06.
  27. ^ "Un Certain Regard Awards Ceremony". Cannes Film Festival. festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-05-23.
  28. ^ "Fading light on film festival". irishtimes. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  29. ^ "Main Prize Estoril Film Festival". Estoril Film Festival. estoril-filmfestival.com. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  30. ^ "Greek Oscars were given away!". grreporter. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  31. ^ "Night of Greek Oscars is coming!". grreporter. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  32. ^ "'Dogtooth' wins first prize at Ljulbljana film festival". Athens News. Retrieved 2011-02-02.
  33. ^ "PRESS RELEASE NO. 11 21st Ljubljana International Film Festival – LIFFe" (PDF). Ljubljana International Film Festival. liffe.si. Retrieved 2011-02-02.
  34. ^ "Dogtooth hooks Split". cineuropa.org. Retrieved 2011-01-27.
  35. ^ "2010 RiverRun Award Winners". riverrunfilm. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  36. ^ "Dogtooth, Ordinary People, Eastern Plays and Storm Awarded in Trieste". sff.ba. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  37. ^ "Dogtooth Receives an Award at the 31st Cinemed". sff.ba. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  38. ^ "Dogtooth: Sitges Film Festival". Sitges Film Festival. sitgesfilmfestival.com. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
  39. ^ "Dogtooth – Stockholms filmfestival". Stockholm International Film Festival. stockholmfilmfestival.se. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dogtooth_(film)&oldid=411573301"