THE "WONDERFUL" WORLD OF YORGOS LANTHIMOS OR THE FALL OF THE DOGTOOTH

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…  

GROWING PAINS : "ATTENBERG"

Now, a warning to all you conservative viewers out there. This is one of those “new fangled” films. You know, one of the ones that use abstractions and weird settings to get a message across. In my opinion, however, it does it so well that even if it does grate slightly at first (it didn’t in my case) you quickly get used to it (that’s what I guess happens any way). Now, much to my shame I haven’t seen much in the way of Greek cinema, this may in fact be my first Greek film ever. However, I found it deep and I found it thought provoking – despite the weirdness going on. Oh, talking of weirdness, there is quite a lot of nudity and sex in the film as well, personally I didn’t find it disturbing – partly due to the way it’s generally handled – but still, this is not one for the kids…
Now, meet Marina. She lives in a small seaside town in Greece. In this life she has two friends, her widowed father and Bella, a girl her own age. Now, Marina’s age is actually 23, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her. On the outside, towards strangers, she seems normal enough if rather quiet. On the inside however… Well, the lack of social contact, the closed community and her sick father who doesn’t have the time or energy to take care of her, her development has been rather stunted. Thus, at 23, she is still yet to “discover” boys. Bella, who is still awkward but slightly “better off” than Marina tries to teach her the basics but Marina finds the whole thing “disgusting”. There is a problem however. Spiro, her father is dying. Since her mother has already passed away, Marina must rather abruptly begin to learn all the things she has missed out on before Spiro passes away. Otherwise, there is really no telling what might happen…
Now, sitting from the comfort of the western world, the storyline may sound a little improbable to you but in fact, well it’s exaggerated but I can quite see what they are driving at. In developing countries, or in countries where there is a tradition of strict religious upbringing or just in small isolated communities, social relations are not what they should be. Things are often “more complicated” than they should be, and more sensitive issues like intimacy and sexuality are often not openly discussed and thus well… Stunted. Not as they should be. Not having the chance to run their course and develop naturally, the behavior patterns become far from “normal”. Marina’s relationship with her father for instance – she tells him everything, including “boys”. When he asks her why she’s telling him all this Marina replies “I have no one else to tell it to.” (Bella is a bit of a flirt and thus a threat). Her father also is more “at ease” in expressing his views to her; “Sorry” he says at one point “I keep forgetting you’re not my buddy.” “That’s because you don’t have any buddies” replies Marina. So in fact the lack of social interaction is affecting Spiro too. Just with Marina it has come at a more developmental stage, affecting her outlook on many things. This is somewhat where the name of the film comes in. “Attenberg” is actually Sir David Attenborough (obviously mispronounced), and Marina and her father love nothing more than crashing on the bed together and watching his documentaries – sometimes even imitating the animals (rather indicative of the fact that Marina doesn’t quite feel “human”, she is like a different species and thus unable to “mate” with humans). And in fact Marina is quite happy with her little tribe of three, but Spiro is dying and Bella, well… They may be tribe-members but she is a threat to Marina, it is high time for Marina to grow up…
Now, at this point I have to say I am not entirely comfortable with the process of a woman’s development and maturing being almost equated to sexuality (a bit like Black Swan in fact, don’t you think? Completely different contexts of course...) but then again, I guess it is one of the real “big” signs of growing up. It’s not called the “facts of life” for nothing. And besides, the film is a wonderful essay on loneliness, love (in many shades, not just sex – we also see Marina trying to cope with her beloved father’s death) and growing up… A bit in your face with the methods but beautiful messages…