ESSAYS, ARTICLES, AND THEORIES ABOUT CINEMA: FAMILY MATTERS: DOGTOOTH (2009)

Dogtooth (2009), or as it is referred to by its Greek title, Κυνόδοντας, is more than just a film. It’s an experience for the audience, and an exploration into rules, morals, and patriarchal hierarchy in the family structure. The film contains a bold satirical undertone in the way it portrays the extremities within the way in which the family operates. Filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos officially joins the ranks of contemporary auteurs, which have and still are challenging audiences to submit themselves before pieces that push society’s boundaries of taboo and extremes through their representation of sex and violence. Specifically, Michael Haneke with his grossly honest and sadistic amusement, Funny Games (1997), Todd Solondz with Happiness (1998), a disturbing tale about how everyone contains twisted fantasies, Christophe Honoré with Ma Mére (2004), a beautiful adaptation of Georges Bataille’s novel about masochistic obsession and desire within an incestuous love between a mother and son, and Gaspar Noé’s Irreversible (2002), which successfully alienated viewers with roller-coasteresc movements and one of the most brutal rape scenes ever filmed. Lanthimos joins these individuals by making a film that more than likely will take viewers out of their comfort zones and introduce them into a world of difference, which makes them vulnerable. The film’s social relevancy is shown within its lustrous and depth-induced cinematography, emphasizing clarity of detail. Whether inducing perspective by showing Brother staring at the fence with the camera at a fixed angle, using long shots to detail the jungle-like scenery of the yard, framing heads out shots when dialogue occurs, or the sharp quality of the image in and around the pool to mesmerize the viewer’s eye, it clearly shows that Lanthimos has a lurid cinematic eye within his aesthetics. Many will either ignorantly dismiss the film as “trite” and “pretentious,” or will be completely disgusted by the violence and sex, and refuse to read into the film, however, one thing is certain: no matter what negative criticism this film may pick up when its distributor, Kino International, hopefully acquires more theaters to showcase, the film does engage its audience. The mere negative responses alone will in fact strengthen the core of the film. In between the latest Summer blockbuster sequel or 3-D enhanced blockbuster, there could not be a better time for the release of Dogtooth.

In the film, the plot is the least intriguing element, compared to how the film operates and how it delivers open-interpretive understandings. Dogtooth is about a father who keeps his family inside and around the yard, contained by an electronic gate that he opens primarily for him to venture out and keep him family in. There are no names attributed to the members of the family. They are merely identified by their role within the family: Father, Mother, Older Daughter, Younger Daughter, and Son. By doing so, Lanthimos establishes an environment where the characters are deidentified by their individual characteristics. Each character might do or say something in private, however everything always comes back to the family. The family alone is a unit, a strong base that thrives off everyone working together to strengthen its core. While the family may work together, everything is, on the other hand, dictated by Father. And the only way Father knows how to control his family is through force. The film operates on two different levels. The first level is containment and the second, natural course.

Containment is literally and metaphorically shown through moral intent. The fence, set in place by Father, is used just as much to keep, what he feels are negative influences out, than to keep the family in. While his actions may appear extreme or absurd to some individuals, he is doing nothing more than preserving his family’s innocence by any means necessary. Every family operates differently. Father reinforces the rule of the house through containment by keeping the family in constant fear of what exists beyond the fence. This is illustrated by him redefining the role of the cat. He paints the cat as a beast, one capable of eating children’s flesh, because he wishes to keep the family aligned within his order. “If you stay inside, you are protected,” he tells them after Brother impales a cat with a pair of garden hedge clippers. By getting the entire family on all fours, barking, he sculpts them into dog-like personas to ignite their animalistic side. The father partakes in numerous tasks in order to delude their status to that of a dog. Father brings in Christina to have sex with Brother. This can be associated with a master introducing a female dog to his dog for breeding. When Father discovers that Older Sister traded Christina oral sex for videotapes, he contains his anger, asking her to bring him masking tape. He binds the tape to his hand and repeatedly strikes her in the head. This act can be can be associated with a dog urinating on the floor and the master rubbing the dog’s face in the urine. Another example where Father acts with intent to preserve innocence within the family is show in the scene where he plays Frank Sinatra’s “Fly to Me to the Moon.” While Sinatra plays on the record player and as he sings each line, Father recites moral subtexts like, “Dad loves us,” “Mom loves us,” “I love my brothers and sisters,” and “My parents are proud of me, because I do my best.” Since the language barrier is present, Father uses it to insert subliminal messages within the workings of the song. Overall, Father makes decisions that better contain the family within the environment and in the submissive grasp of his authority.

The second level is natural course. Being in such a hazardously strict household, the kids adapt to the standards by submission due to their susceptibility within their environment. Throughout the course of the film, Older Sister, Younger Sister and Brother are met with temptations. Whenever temptation presents itself, it is human nature to either give in or disregard entirely. In this case, all siblings give into their own curiosities. Father might enforce Nurture, however Nature finds its way into the home. The course of Nature is too powerful for Father to keep out. He continues to assemble borders in between the kids and their curiosities, however it seems the kids are capable of digging through the borders and give into their desires. Since they are contained inside the fenced-in area, they are left with the house and the yard to play games. Outside, they lie in the grass and play with a small toy airplane, obviously a symbol for their yearning to fly away from their current location. Inside, the sisters play doctor, both inhale an anesthetic until they pass out, and the winner being the first to wake. Other games include walking around the yard blindfolded until they find one Mother. Nature makes its way into the house more or less in the form of Christina. She is brought into the house for “arranged sex” with Brother. Father sets this up in order to ease Brother’s transitional phase into puberty. After having sex with him, Christina approaches Older Sister. Bringing in objects from the outside, Older Sister is fascinated by Christina. One day, Christina teaches her the act of bartering. In return for Christina’s head clamp, Older Sister performs oral sex on her. Older Sister takes this knowledge and teaches Younger Sister, offering the head clamp if she returns with licking her shoulder. Bartering is not the only knowledge taught, but also the act of raising the stakes. When Christina attempts to barter with Older Sister again, it is Older Sister who makes the demands for a set of videotapes Christina brought into the house. When Older Sister watches one of the tapes, she later reenacts a scene from what obviously is one of the Rocky films. By doing so, Older Sister develops instinct naturally through observation. This can be taken as a critical jab to individuals who believe media dictates action. In this context, it is not the film itself to create her reenactment, but the strict rules set in place by Father that cause her curiosity towards watching the tapes. Alongside Father’s containment of the family, Nature itself adapts within the structured morality. One night, Younger Sister takes a hammer and hits Brother’s leg, but when Father and Mother enter, she says, “It wasn’t me. I saw the cat with a hammer jumping out the window.” Father suddenly finds himself in a difficult position. He can either punish the son or the daughter: protect the myth of the cat and keep his family vulnerable, or condemning Younger Sister for using the cat as an excuse, thus making him appear weak and potentially exposing his lies. By choosing to punish the son, he does not strengthen his values, but in fact sets an example that it is okay to use his rules against him. One of the rules set in place by Father is that a child may leave the house if their dogtooth falls out. Right from the beginning, the objective is set for all the kids. At one point, Older Sister asks Younger Sister to check the flexibility of her dogtooth. The tension builds to the point where she is forced to take matters literally into her own hands. With a weight in hand, she powerfully knocks her own dogtooth out. The weight itself serves as the metaphorical weight, or pressure compressed on her by the strict rules and harsh environment, and in turn, she uses it to meet the standards of admittance into the outside world. She makes her transition from child to adult by naturally developing the responsibility of taking a stand. It in a way is her own initiation, getting into the trunk, awaiting her freedom, however the film leaves her fate up to the viewer since it ends with her still in the trunk of the car.