Dogtooth

I don't get to the cinema as often as I'd like these days and when I do it often seems to be to see a revival (admittedly these are always pretty wonderful though they often feel like the "safe" option) or to squint in disbelief at the colossally empty and exceptionally loud spectacle of "Avatar."  Then I see a film like "Dogtooth" and my faith that magical films are still being made is reaffirmed.  This Greek film is easily the best film made in recent years that I've seen.  It is potent and disturbing matter; four people walked out of the screening my friends and I attended.  But I think great art does divide people into strong camps.  I'd recommend this film to anyone old enough to see it, but with the caveat that it is not for the faint of heart or the delicate of sensibility.  It is a strange, surreal meditation on family life with echoes of Bunuel and Tarkovsky in its sun-infused tension and hushed intensity. This is a family that we would like to view from a distance, to judge, but, remarkably, the director, Yorgos Lanthimos, and his ensemble of extraordinary performers allow us to draw close to the characters. They win us with their innocence. It is a playful film that depicts a terrifying form of familial fascism.  It operates on so many levels of meaning it dizzies analysis.  The awe and wonder of childhood are perverted and distorted in this odd remaking of the outside world.  It is the sweetest nightmare and I don't think I will ever forget it.