Greece’s

Dogtooth

A few years ago, an art exhibit in Brooklyn featured painting of a black Virgin Mary splattered with elephant feces.  Not surprisingly, this got people talking. Soon enough there was a nationwide debate about what art is suppose to be and, since the exhibit received government money, whether the taxpayers should subsidize “offensive” art.

If only smell-o-vision was a thing…

The artist, a British man by the name of Chris Ofili, claimed that he was challenging the idea that art should only be beautiful. And yes, this is art. It pushes sacred imagery to a perverse end and challenges the way in which the viewer places meaning on symbols. You have to ask yourself why it is offensive to have the Virgin Mary portrayed this way. Is it great art? Hell no. It lacks is any semblance of subtly. It smacks you in the face with a fistful of shit, calling you a bourgeois pig as it scoffs at you for misinterpreting the work.

“My greatest work to date. I call it butt nuggets.”

What defines a work of true quality is one that doesn’t take its audience for granted. It does this by not flat out saying what its message is. That’s what makes good art interesting; it will do something meaningful that will create a discussion. Discussion isn’t possible when art wears its message in bold print. Good art makes the viewer work a little bit for the message and will invite him or her to think about life in a way that they hadn’t before. That’s what sets Greece’s Doogtooth aside from an average film. Like Ofili’s painting, this film takes a sacred subject and pushes it to a perverse end. Dogtooth’s subject is the raising of children by parents. This movie elicits such strong feelings in the viewer. Director Yorgos Lanthimos applies such a deft hand that the strings manipulating the viewer are all but invisible. This is the story of a family with three adult children who have never left the property on which they grew up. They have had no exposure to the outside world and have had only their parents to influence them. This can be funny at times. At one point the son asks the mother what a zombie is and she tells him that they are little yellow flowers. In a later scene, he is in the yard and screams, “Mom! I found some zombies in the garden, should I bring them in?” Lanthimos has been compared to Luis Bunuel for his efforts here and the influences are visible. There is a tone, a deftness with which this film progresses that infuses each scene with a almost horror like quality.

This shot is an example of the subtle creepiness of the film. Lanthimos breaks the fundamental rule that the scene be broken up into thirds by making this scene symmetrical. He breaks this rule for effect. The shot seems wrong somehow, eerie and foreboding, reminiscent of the scene from The Shining with the twins.

Still makes me want to run screaming from the room.

This is not a feel good, family film. It calls into question the dynamics of the nuclear unit. The infantilzation of the three grown children ranges from endearing to grotesque. The film dives into the roles that parents and children play. The job of a parent is to create a safe environment for a child to grow up in with the goal that they become successful adults. This film asks what happens when the attempt to make the kids safe is all that matters. The parents high level of control over their children puts “adulthood” on a permanent hiatus. This film is a criticism for the lies every parent tells on behalf of his or her children. When does it cross the line from protection to inhibiting the well being of children to allow them to believe in Santa Claus? This is a sacred human responsibility; it gets to the absolute heart of what we humans are trying to do with this whole life thing. We are trying to ensure the health and well being of future generations of the species. After all, the most basic definition of life is that it is DNA trying to replicate itself. How well is our species doing?

-Stephanie Rose