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Dogtooth
Dogtooth
Κυνόδοντας
2009 ·98 min ·Greece · 18+
7.5
IMDb 7.1 КП 6.4 RT 94% MC 72
Drama
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Trailers Dogtooth
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Three teenagers are confined to an isolated country estate that could very well be on another planet. The trio spend their days listening to endless homemade tapes that teach them a whole new vocabulary. Any word that comes from beyond their family abode is instantly assigned a new meaning. Hence 'the sea' refers to a large armchair and 'zombies' are little yellow flowers. Having invented a brother whom they claim to have ostracized for his disobedience, the uber-controlling parents terrorize their offspring into submission.

Budget: $275,000
US Gross: $223,072
Worldwide: $110,248
Christos Stergioglou
Actor
Michele Valley
Actor
Angeliki Papoulia
Actor
🏆 Cannes Film Festival 2009 — Un Certain Regard
🎬 Academy Awards 2011 — Best International Feature Film

Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth is a polarizing, surrealist exploration of an isolated family whose reality is constructed through absurd parental deceptions. While many critics praise its unique, unsettling aesthetic and thematic depth, others find the deliberate emotional distance, explicit imagery, and lack of traditional narrative resolution to be alienating or ineffective.

Cinematography The film employs a unique, static visual language that uses pastel compositions to reinforce the characters' artificial and infantilized world.
Acting The performances effectively capture a haunting, pre-adolescent innocence that underscores the children's psychological constraint.
Theme The thematic exploration of how oppressive authority figures shape, control, and eventually distort human identity creates a compelling, if disturbing, viewing experience.
Pacing Opinions on the film's pacing are split; some viewers find the deliberate, contemplative tempo immersive, while others experience it as a boring or overly long exercise in misery.
Screenplay Viewers are sharply divided on the narrative, with some viewing the plot as a profound, chilling metaphor for societal conditioning, while others dismiss it as implausible, poorly motivated, and lacking in substantial purpose.
Originality The inclusion of explicit, grotesque, and shocking scenes polarizes the audience, with some interpreting them as necessary tools for unsettling the status quo and others viewing them as gratuitous or underdeveloped.
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