Dogtooth

I saw this today at the Renoir near my university. What a movie; it was incredibly powerful. What did you lot make of it? Has the director done any other notable stuff?

Awesome movie. I remember thinking for a the first few minutes that the fest I was seeing it at had fucked up the subtitles...

good movie

just watched this. really enjoyed it. was initially a bit frustrated that the parents', or maybe more the father's, motives are never really explored but really i suppose that's sort of besides the point, if not contrary to it.

i winced really hard.

me too

I loved it. I loved that no one's motives were explained.

It reminded me of comics by Dan Clowes, the way all the characters seemed rather blank.

so did you guys actually get off on graphic incest inna haneke stylee or just feel that the vague metaphor about totalitarianism justified it?

was initially on board with the movie when it felt like it was about parents' natural inclination to control their children's surrounding, but the specific perversities of the situation got so nutzoid that I found it less thought-provoking than gag-inducing.

Intrigued by the idea of this, but is it graphic/horrible to watch? I'm feeling feeble.

there's one hideously graphic 1 minute sequence that i was genuinely quite shocked/revolted by. i thought the film was pretty good. it's perhaps not as rigorous as it should be and about 1/3rd of the scenes or ideas don't quite come off.

A great Killer Cat movie.

Totalitarianism? Family family family. (And mine wasn't that bad.) Will be high on John Waters' list. Closer to Bunuel than Haneke, with a pinch of Bresson.

a lot of this felt kind of Shocking Art Film Tropes R Us but i still liked it way more than most of haneke's films

Sicinski:

Some have compared Dogtooth to the work of Michael Haneke, but I respectfully disagree. There is a grim pleasure at work throughout Dogtooth that betrays a certain invitation to, if not identify, then certainly vicariously get off on the flawlessly executed torments and tastefully-appointed Euro-Modern fascism that both Dogtooth's family patriarch and the director himself have labored so intensely to produce. Haneke, ever the clear-cut moralist, always eschews ambiguity; we're either culpable for watching, or we're on his side, the side of rectitude. Lanthimos is craftier, and quite possibly more morally bankrupt, since he stages acts of triangulated violence [sadist / masochist / voyeur] as if they were mere pas de deux.

http://academichack.net/reviewsMay2010.htm#Dogtooth

People can feel free to delight in whatever "grim pleasure" there was in this and not in Funny Games etc, but the static compositions and pace in this feel a lot closer to the Haneke I've seen than the Bunuel, enough so that a mildly different temperament than Haneke doesn't render the reference point invalid.

I agree with that writer's dilemma about whether the film actually accomplishes anything, I just don't find it particularly provocative. Both this and Inception fell so down the wormhole of their batty specifics that they lost any potential metaphorical resonance, leaving it a matter of whether you got off on the basic experience (not unlike Big Love!). And this experience included long takes of siblings masturbating each other, so no thanks.

haha after Nick's "claiming a film failed at its goals when other people liked it is rude" sniffle on the Inception thread, I feel like I should have tacked a redundant imo in there.

I think "Let's listen to your grandfather" is one of the best LP scenes in awhile

What was the end shot supposed to signify?
Some really great scenes in this movie, but yes I agree that some fell flat. Or were gross.

Kind of wished the end had revealed that the mum & dad were right all along and they did live in a land of killer cats, zombie flowers, etc.

Dunno, I can't remember what the end shot was anymore. Was it of the father's factory?

Boot/trunk of the car

Open ending, I guess? I don't want to spoiler things or I'd say more.

everyone needs to see this

very good film

Oh god this film is fist-in-the-mouth great, I recommended it to a friend and he looks at me askance if I mention it now...I don't think he was keen really.

I watched this last night. It's described on the local theater's website as a "very black comedy" and I think that's what the crowd was expecting.
Fair amount of laughter throughout the film, even during the violent outbursts, which made me kind of concerned/uncomfortable.
I thought the sexy parts were really sexy.
I just made a complaint to a friend that no films this year have made much of an impression on me. Glad that's not the case anymore.

Eh,sexy parts? The awkward sex between the bro and the security guard moonlighting as a prozzer; said security guard exploiting ignorant imprisoned sis for head; or bro sis incest followed by death threat?

Or the olds headphones sex?

All the girls in it are hot.

in a creepy way, but yeah.

wow. haven't seen too many new movies this year, but this was far and away the best.

Closer to Bunuel than Haneke

Morbz otm; would really like to see this again, if it ever gets a DVD release in QC.

Haneke comparison really rings true though, in terms of pace, mood, style. certainly very Bunuel when it kicks off and you don't really know what's happening, but it's basically a straight story. the mysterious OPEN ENDING is feeling like a bit of a lazy cliche here, gotta say.

i admire this for making me feel so conflicted throughout. genuinely sad/horrific/beautiful/hilarious. it was difficult to respond to. and not in a cheap way, imo.

I agree with that writer's dilemma about whether the film actually accomplishes anything, I just don't find it particularly provocative. Both this and Inception fell so down the wormhole of their batty specifics that they lost any potential metaphorical resonance, leaving it a matter of whether you got off on the basic experience (not unlike Big Love!). And this experience included long takes of siblings masturbating each other, so no thanks.

I very much agree with this point, except that I thought Dogtooth was still worth a watch. But the movie was just so insular, obviously the director quite intentionally refused to give any context or any history to the situation. For example, he didn't explain how the security guard agreed to do what she did, or why she didn't tell the police about the family after what the father did to her? Or why did the family end up this way in the first place? It seemed the director was so keen on just showing the specific mechanics of this perverse family life that he didn't really bother thinking about any wider issues it implied. I guess this specificity and refusal of context made Dogtooth more fascinating in a watching-a-car-crash kind of way, but it didn't really give me much to think about after it was over. Even if Haneke's moral mechanics are kinda crude, and I don't always agree with him, at least his movies have always given me food for thought and discussion.

Wait for the Hollywood remake, that'll "explain" everything! (cue flashbacks to 'Nam etc)

if there's a tendency to overrate it, perhaps it's because this is something like the fifth straight Worst Year in Film Ever.

i dunno about this one

i think Sinatra interlude is Scene of the Year

that was pretty good. some scenes stuck with me. overall the whole isolated life / warped education thing seemed kinda half-baked and unconvincing as opposed to say something like 'the enigma of kaspar hauser'

was initially on board with the movie when it felt like it was about parents' natural inclination to control their children's surrounding, but the specific perversities of the situation got so nutzoid that I found it less thought-provoking than gag-inducing.

― da croupier, Monday, July 12, 2010 4:47 PM (4 months ago)

^ this basically

I think that is an apt critique.

i think Sinatra interlude is Scene of the Year

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 28 November 2010 10:43 (Yesterday)

could well be

unconvincing

It's not a naturalistic picture.

Hits region 1 DVD in late January.

oh my, this is awesome. so hilarious. but i guess only sick people get it. the younger sister is damn gorgeous dont you think?

Totally. She's in a kind of punk/electroclash band in Greece called "Mary and the Boy":
(Before you hit play, be warned that this could either enhance or kill any potential crush on her)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiIU-I6AVao&feature=related

let's see...

damn, i thought that video contains her action

her milkshake brings all the boys to the ytimg

has anyone seen the first film by the dogtooth director?

nope.

Out on DVD today, and Oscar nominated, somehow! There are gonna be some appalled AMPAS members walking outta screenings...

Admittedly I did watch this while pretty much half asleep, but this film was so underwhelming to me. Don't get the love for it.

couple of bottles of bucky and a few adderall and you will be in the right frame of mind to appresh this diseased masterwork of antiseptic canetti slash

The main thing I came away with was a lot of this felt kind of Shocking Art Film Tropes R Us (quoted from donna rouge, though I disagree with the liking it better than Haneke part of that post). It didn't really feel like it did anything new with them.

yeah i can see that, though i have little time for haneke/von trier/breillat whereas i liked this a lot

I've never seen another film framed to crop off heads in so many scenes.

As political metaphor, it would have made more sense had it emerged from post-Hoxha Albania. Greece hasn't been that closed a society even under the colonels in the early 70s.

that means you can cross out 'political metaphor' from the list of heavyhanded artfilm subtexts....

seemed enough like New York to me

this was good iirc

http://academichack.net/reviewsMay2010.htm#Dogtooth

tastefully-appointed Euro-Modern fascism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brosen_tirana_hoxha_mausol.jpg
The former Enver Hoxha Mausoleum in Tirana.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/Brosen_tirana_hoxha_mausol.jpg/220px-Brosen_tirana_hoxha_mausol.jpg

Now avail on Netflix instant according to a friend.

Genre:
Foreign Art House, Foreign Steamy Romance, Greece

This movie is:
Cerebral, Romantic

wtf netflix

Genre:
Foreign Art House 'Shocker', Albania

This movie is:
Diseased, Underwhelming, Soporific, Creepy

Keywords:
Enver Hoxha, Canetti, Euro-Modern Fascism

netflix need to get ilx to do their tags if they wanna make bank

they meant Foreign Steamy Incest

"A Foreign Steamy Romance ... Cerebral ... Romantic" - Netflix ****

To be fair, I did feel quite steamy and romantic when I saw the younger sister in the bath.

eldest reciting jaws/rocky and then later That Dance and then the bathroom and then the trunk raised it above the level of pure art-house heavy-handed shock metaphor for me. really thought it was great. the mother throwing the plane had me lolling

^ this guy

really looking forward to seeing this again. i went into this having pretty much no idea what it was about and just sort of piecing it together as it went on, so i'm curious as to how it works knowing from the get-go.

saw this in a small theater with maybe 10 people. so many vocal, conflicting reactions throughout. not sure about the guy who laughed hysterically when the cat got it.

I've rarely seen an audience so in tune reaction-wise to the shock stuff (the cat, the stabbing, the final removal of the "dogteeth"). It was like a wave of "uggh" shot out from the screen to the back row.

I have a filmnut friend who was homeschooled. I'll have to show this to him sometime and see what he makes of it.

"So, is this what it was like in your family?"

Dogtooth director says his new film Alps will be darker and more extreme

New Greek film Attenberg features Dogtooth director Lanthimos's penis in one scene, if anyone's interested.

Not really, no.

hardly its chief asset. Attenberg more based in reality than Dogtooth, but together they constitute an absurdist Greek mini0new wave?

also scoring to Suicide & Francise Hardy A+

has lanthimos' new one played in nyc yet? i missed it at AFI

just at Film Comment Selects recently

this reminds me of rolf de heer's bad boy bubby more than anything i've seen by Haneke. both involved cruelty to cats, for one thing.

I dunno, BBB clearly sympathizes and gives agency to its protagonist, whereas Dogtooth has that Hanekesque clinical/detached vibe where the ones we could symphatize with (the kids) are treated more like objects.

both great movies imo

might see Alps tonight

Thought this was amazing, although I v rarely watch 'art' films so perhaps it's considered old hat or derivative. Totally blew me away, especially the dance scene near the end whcih I could happily watch on a loop for a considerable amount of time.

Finally saw this last night. **SPOILERS AHEAD**

Without knowing anything at all about the director's biography, I'm tempted to read some kind of personal psycho-symbolic meaning into the eldest's revelatory encounter with cinema culminating in a beating, which rattled me as much as any of the gorier scenes.

I also did not think the ending ambiguous in the slightest, perhaps because the dangers of climbing into automobile trunks were blared at me from earliest -childhood. The fact that this fatal danger was nowhere on the father's or the children's radar seemed darkly funny and ironic in a way that verged on classical tragedy, while also hinting at some larger moral message about the need for parental authority to exist in a respectful give-and-take with a child's freedom to explore the world and make mistakes.

I was quite saddened to learn of the early death of Mary Tsoni, the actress who played the younger sister. I spent the rest of the night listening to recordings of her band, Mary and the Boy -- arty diy punk with wonderfully confrontational vox, the complete opposite of her performance in this film.

...And I very much agree with this (from the academichack review linked upthread)

But Dogtooth is a film that operates according to a completely self-sufficient internal logic, such that watching its movement, and observing how each and every horrifying or absurd human action produces equally horrifying but (within context) utterly comprehensible reflexive responses, becomes its own form of meta-behaviorist "interpretation," as formalist as any abstract painting. And as masterful as Dogtooth is on this level, I find myself wondering whether there is a larger aim, beyond the rather obvious one of spectatorial co-implication. To put it in more basic terms: what does Lanthimos accomplish by staging scenes of egregious parental abuse? I find the question as provocative as I do troubling, and this is a large part of why I admire Dogtooth. Any system of abuse, within the privacy of the four walls that shield it from the larger world, develops its own internal logic, one that would collapse under the weight of public scorn when exposed to the light of day. But Lanthimos, for his part, has reminded us of an important philosophical insight. Violence is semiotic. Our bodies "speak" abuse like a language.

I was quite saddened to learn of the early death of Mary Tsoni, the actress who played the younger sister

oh man, I had no idea! RIP.