Intended as an airy allegory about familial and media inflicted disinformation, "Dogtooth" is a piece of experimental exploitation cinema that collapses under the weight of its own abstract provocations.
Greek enfant terrible filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos doesn't bother to give names to the five members of a family whose parents home-school their three now-teenaged children who have never set foot outside their home compound.
The father (Christos Stergioglou) works at a sterile factory of unknown product from which he hires the company's female parking lot security attendant Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou) to service his son's sexual needs.
Bisexual Christina stirs up a hornet's nest when she starts bartering sexual favors from the two daughters, who in turn try out their newly learned skills on one another. The children's heads have been filled with plenty of erroneous information by their poker faced parents. The children believe that cats are man-eating beasts and the word "pussy" means "light switch."
This undeserving winner of the 2009 Cannes Festival Un Certain Regard award comes across as a smug exploration of non-sequitur minimalist cinema. There is no rigor here, only cold intentionality.
Not Rated. 94 mins.
