Yorgos
Lanthimos is becoming
more and more of a household name in arthouse circles. His latest film, The
Lobster, brought him international acclaim and awards at this year’s Cannes
film festival. Set in an alternative universe where humans who fail at having a
successful relationship
are transformed into animals and banished, we can only imagine that Lanthimos
is going to be the topic of quite a few discussions to come. This is not by any
means Lanthimos first foray into the limelight, a few years ago, in 2011,
Dogtooth won him multiple international awards, including an Oscar nomination
for Best International Feature. I heard of Dogtooth at the time – well you
could hardly avoid it. I avoided watching it though; I always felt that its
rather strange and disturbing subject matter would be a little too much for me.
Yet, when the film came across my path again recently, I had to stop and think.
This guy is clearly not going anywhere soon as far as his name in the art world
goes. One might as well come to terms with this fact and get to know the guy.
At the very least so one can say succinctly WHY one doesn’t like his films.
“They just sound weird” is not really an academic or professional answer to
give. So I dove straight into the wonderful world of Dogtooth. And before we
kick off, kudos to Lanthimos, he has done a truly spectacular job of creating
an almost completely believable alternative reality within the very world we
live in… Well, Lanthimos – and the characters he has created.
Our protagonists
are a family. Clearly a family of means, the father goes off to work every day
while the mother stays at home in the large and beautiful house and grounds
with the three teenage children. However, all is not quite as it seems in the
idyll. Although provided with every single thing they need, the children are kept,
by their parents, in a sort of alternative reality. The world outside is
dangerous. So much so that leaving the house before your Dogtooth falls out
might well mean death. There are no such things as telephones, videos, newspapers
– in fact any connection to the outside world. Nobody enters the house except
Christine, brought in once a week to relieve the son’s sexual desires. Apart
from that their parents are the only other humans the children (they have no
names) know. But, of course, you can only keep humans in such a state of
submission for only so long. Eventually real life will creep in through the
cracks, somehow, and “pollute” the atmosphere. In this household, kept in this
extraordinary state for many years, the consequences will be devastating…
First of
all, sensitive souls, take heart. The film is undoubtedly hard to watch, but by
no means does Lanthimos make it into an emotional spectacle. In fact the way
the film portrays the lives of the family to us is almost clinical. An almost
unmoving camera, no real close-ups or extreme close-ups, and reliance on an
almost completely diegetic score all means that the film has the air of a very
surreal documentary. This effect is also partly due to the way the actors
deliver their lines. The limited emotional development the children have been
through means that they speak almost constantly with poker faced seriousness.
The house itself is quite dour at the best of times. There is no joking, no
laughing, no real shows of affection and no pets… It makes sense really, the
characters live in such a limited world that they do not need a broad range of
emotion. And if they did feel anything new, their father probably would not approve. The benefits of making the film so clinical are
twofold, apart from making the film watchable – you could make the film very
melodramatic with completely different style choices and editing – it allows us
to take a step back and really think about the film and the messages it is
trying to convey. Approached academically, Dogtooth has quite a lot to say for
itself…
The film
could be of course an analogy for pretty much any repressive state anywhere. On
a larger scale, this could be life in North Korea for example, or a secretive
country like Bhutan. And the message of the film is clear. No matter how hard
you try, no matter how long it actually looks as if you are succeeding for, you
will never repress the human soul, the human instincts for ever. Even the best
of armour has chinks in it and you are a fool if you think that you can stop
all influences for ever. In the film, we get hints that the family actually
mean well – they want to preserve the children’s purity, stop them developing
bad characters. However, no matter what you mean, repressing a human soul and
trying to mould it to your whim will never, never end well and will never fully
succeed. In a bizarre kind of way Dogtooth is an ode to the resilience of the
human spirit. Its message is that no matter how surreal the circumstances, no
matter how vigilant the guards, what is meant to be will, undoubtedly be.
As rather
befits the film, we do not have a “clear” end to the film. Lanthimos averts his
(and our)eyes, just at the moment the first real tragedy of the film is about
to strike. The horrors and the consequences of this tragedy are left to our
imaginations, but there can be no doubt that it will, on some level , bring
this strange little kingdom toppling down… Strangely enough though, you can’t
exactly be glad it happened… You’ll see what I mean when you see it…
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