Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
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.
Dogtooth is a genuinely singular work — Lanthimos's controlled, clinical framing and deadpan absurdism create an atmosphere unlike almost anything else in world cinema. The plot's premise is viscerally original: a totalitarian domestic microcosm where language itself is weaponized, yielding scenes of disturbing, darkly comic power. Cinematography is exceptional — static wide shots, fragmented bodies, and deliberately affectless staging reinforce the family's warped reality with remarkable consistency. Novelty is near-unmatched; Lanthimos's voice is utterly distinctive even in this early work. Acting is committed and effectively robotic, though the deliberately de-individualized performances limit conventional dramatic range. The ending is ambiguous and haunting but slightly abrupt — it gestures powerfully at escape and futility without fully resolving its tension, which is thematically apt but somewhat unsatisfying as a culmination.