Dogtooth is not a comedy. The absurd situations in this film became humorous several times but I always choked on my laughter as the subject matter was too serious to be funny. The film is about three young adults who live with their parents in a large but isolated walled compound; the two young women and the young man have no knowledge of the world outside of this place and not much of the world inside of it. In fact the parents deliberately mislead them with nonsense on nearly every topic, for instance they claim that men are commonly killed by cats. Additionally, the siblings are taught the wrong words for certain objects and concepts, thus a "salt shaker" becomes a "telephone." These young people have been given a mostly carefree extended childhood at the cost of ever having any autonomy or knowledge. The parents' theory seems to be that the world is a terrible place and contact with it is more damaging than an isolated life. This Eden-like setting is a blessing and a curse: the characters are free of most problems that face normal people; they have no real responsibility and thus no worry. Still, like any human they yearn for answers and they have a certain half formed desire to be the masters of their own destinies. Further, in what seems to be a recent development the children are seeking an outlet for their sexual needs; while the parents can prevent them from being exposed to any stimulus they cannot stop biological urges from surfacing. Any solution to this problem is bound to upset the already fragile artificial world in which they live.

The implications of this film can be applied to any number of societal relationships. The connection these siblings have with their parents is quite similar to the affiliation between a citizen and his government or a believer and his religious institution. The film implies that for any of these relationships to work the individual must forego intelligence and blindly follow the institution although this sort of obedience is contrary to human nature. At the same time, the few people in charge must play their part perfectly in order to keep the trust they've been given; this proves just as difficult for the leaders as the followers, here for example when the parents allow themselves things forbidden to the children and inevitably draw unwanted attention.

Dogtooth is a film that raises all sorts of questions about the individual and the society he is forced to play a part in and it encapsulates these questions into a deceptively simple plot. Wisely, rather than answer these questions the film leaves these questions to be pondered by the viewer even as it neatly reduces the entire question to the absurd.

A couple has kept their three adult children in isolation all of their lives. The siblings do lessons from tapes and do tests for stickers. They have strange ideas about the world outside. Only the father goes outside to be a factory manager. Christina works as security for the factory. The father brings in Christina to have scheduled sex with the son. The interactions bring about unusual results.

This is a strange movie about a strange family. It is unusual. One imagines all the strange interior cultures that could arise from isolation. The use of deadpan mannerisms really work to make these characters awkward and alien. They have strip them of their modern civility.

I first became aware of this Greek drama (the horror elements attributed to it are mainly implied) via an enthusiastic review in a British movie magazine. I was immediately intrigued by the plot (of the children of a family leading an oppressive/deceptive sheltered life – though the result is a long way from Joseph Losey's THESE ARE THE DAMNED [1963]) but, since it was surprisingly Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, I made it a point to check this one out before the ceremony (even if there is little chance of it emerging the eventual winner).

I have only watched a handful of titles from this Mediterranean country over the years, so I could not tell what was the current trend in their film-making style; as it turned out, this seemed to follow in the no-holds-barred tradition of directors like Lars von Trier and Gaspar Noe, neither of which I am at all fond of! The film, therefore, resorted to snatches of hardcore pornography to get its various points across. Some elements prove engaging, such as the presence of a woman from Father's place of work to provide sexual service for the two elder kids in exchange for trivial gifts, who is eventually assaulted by the old man when she in turn gives them presents 'behind his back'. At other times, it is even amusing: not only when performing a spastic dance for their parents' benefit, but the notion that an imaginary other brother had been scratched to death by a cat – when one such animal unaccountably turns up on the premises, it is brutally killed there and then by the boy with a pair of garden shears! Mostly, however, it is just bewildering since no context whatsoever is given to this unusual situation, thus resulting an altogether pointless and unpleasant exercise!

As expected, the eldest offspring ultimately rebels – deliberately breaking her "Dogtooth" (which would indicate the children's passage into manhood) in order to go out into the world unbeknownst to her father – though the film typically cuts off before anything of consequence happens, thus letting the audience 'make up' their own ending, as it were.