Doogtooth, Greece’s submission for the 2011 Academy Awards' Best Foreign Film category, is a strikingly original work directed by Giorgos Lanthimos that presents a world both unfamiliar and strangely recognizable. The story centers on a family of five residing within a secluded villa in Greece. The property feels more like an enclosed compound, as the father (Christos Stergioglou) is the only member permitted to venture beyond its high walls. His wife (Michele Valley), and their three teenage children live in what initially appears to be an idyllic setting. The film begins with the children listening to instructional recordings. These lessons define commonplace words like "sea" as a leather armchair, "motorway" as a strong wind, and “excursion” as a durable material. Anything that might reveal the outside world is deliberately obscured; even airplanes overhead are presented as toys, prompting one parent to produce a toy plane when they’re spotted, reinforcing the deception. The only person allowed inside this protected environment is Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou), an employee of the father who also works as a prostitute. She's brought to the compound blindfolded, and during her transportation, the father attempts conversation, focusing on trivial matters like her hygiene and whether she wears the perfume he purchased for her. The film dedicates considerable time to depicting the family’s daily routines. We see the father at work, where he concocts elaborate excuses to avoid having his boss over for dinner, claiming his wife—a former handball champion—is confined to a wheelchair due to a tragic accident. Remarkably, this fabrication is accepted without question by both the boss and the children. The film truly shines when focusing on life within the home. The children are shown at play, with the eldest son (Hristos Passalis) appearing to be around 18 or 19, and his two sisters (Angelika Papoulia and Mary Toni) seemingly 18 and 17 respectively. Despite their age, their behavior resembles that of younger children, displaying an innocence that is both poignant and endearing. The actors convincingly portray this arrested development through their games, sibling squabbles, and complete dependence on their parents for information about a world they won't experience until one of their "dogteeth" falls out. The term “dogtooth” itself remains unexplained. When the son asks his mother about zombies, she deflects by inquiring where he heard the word. He lies, claiming it was his father. After pausing, she explains that a zombie is simply a small yellow flower. This playful exchange later returns when the son excitedly calls for his mother to see “zombies” he’s discovered in the garden. While deceiving children may seem harmless, as they mature, fabricated myths and fantasies are inevitably exposed, often by conflicting information from outside sources. This ultimately begins to unravel the family's carefully constructed reality. Christina, the prostitute, desires intimacy that the son rejects; she then bribes the eldest daughter with videos like *Rocky* and *Flashdance*, exposing her to a world her father has instilled fear about. These videos function as a form of forbidden knowledge, akin to eating from the tree of good and evil. Although the father discovers them and banishes both Christina and the videos, the damage is irreversible; things will never be quite the same. The acting in *Dogtooth* is exceptional. Stergioglou portrays the father not as a tyrant, but as a loving and firm parent motivated by what he believes to be his family’s best interests. He avoids portraying him as a villain, which is a testament to Stergioglou's performance. The child actors, particularly Papoulia and Tsoni, convincingly convey a prolonged innocence that isn't achieved through artifice but through subtle and nuanced performances. The unsettling aspect lies in the fact that these are deeply troubled individuals; however, until confronted with external realities, they remain simply children. Because of Lanthimos’s masterful creation of this alternate world, I never questioned anything occurring within it—it all felt logical. *Dogtooth* is a skillfully crafted exploration of family and parenting, examining the choices we make to shield our children from the world and the consequences those decisions can have; sometimes sad, sometimes funny, it's a film worthy of recognition and attention.

Source on TMDB