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Mom, what is a pussy?

Today, the new words are the following: sea, highway, roadtrip.... Like many teen films

Giorgos Lanthimos'Dogtoothopens with a sequence set in a quiet room featuring ored, lank!faced

students and an indifferent lecturer. "ea is the leather arm chair with wooden armrests like the one in

the li#ing room. $nlike many teen films,Dogtooth, is in fact set in a surreal, isolated en#ironment

in#ented, monitored and controlled y one man: the %ather of three &ldest, (rother, and )oungest* and

husand of a complicit +other. The silings ha#e ne#er left home and are told that the outside world is

a perilous place. nly when one of their canine teeth falls out are they ready to see it. kay,Dogtooth

is most definitely not a teen film. -hile we aren't gi#en specific numers, the three silings are

proaly in their late teens and early twenties. The world does not e#en remotely resemle the world

of a typical teen &an atypical one* and the content is proaly not appropriate for teenage #iewing. This

said, the film's iarre setting and imagery ser#e to oscure, transform and reconte/tualie the

underlying coming-of-ageimpulse e/pressed in the film's structure.

+any of the film's 01 minutes are de#oted to the de#elopment of the en#ironment and its

e/perience y the three silings, so the story itself is fairly simple. The ldest siling, a young woman

and our protagonist, manages to get her hands on 23" copies of 4merican mo#ies (Jaws, Rocky IV and

Flashdance*. "he does this y lackmailing a female security guard!turned!prostitute chosen y %ather

to perform se/ual fa#ors for (rother into secretly gi#ing them to her. "he stays up at night and

watches them in secret. 5nspired, she egins to passionately act out scenes from the films in her daily

life. %ather disco#ers the tapes and eats her o#er the head with one of them &hopefullyRocky IV*.

%ather fires and eats &this time with a 23" player* the security guard and, in order to pre#ent any

more outside contact, allows (rother to choose which of his two sisters will replace her. (rother

decides on the ldest. ne night, after #iciously reenacting the climactic dance fromFlashdance, she

smashes her mouth with a dumell, dislodging one of her canine teeth, and hides in the trunk of

%ather's car. 6oncerned, he dri#es away early the ne/t morning to pick up a tracking dog and parks the

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car outside the dog center. The film ends with a lingering shot of the closed trunk.

The protagonist's story can e reduced to three asic parts. %irst, a false, constricting world is

estalished, and she is trapped there. "econd, she manages to catch a glimpse, in the form of 4merican

cinema, of what lies outside her false world. Third, she takes transformati#e action in order to reak

out of the initial state and enter the new world.

The initial state resemles a pre!adult e/perience in a numer of ways. "he is lied to, na7#e and

easy to manipulate. "ome of the lies may sound #aguely familiar to some. -hen she asks +other

what a pussy is, she is told that it is a large lamp &the pussy switched off and the room got all dark*.

4t one point, she performs oral se/ on the security guard in e/change for a glow!in!the!dark headand

that won't glow in the dark. 5n the initial state, she is depri#ed of power and the aility to act. This

frustration is e/pressed in some of the silings' acti#ities during this stage of the film. They often

resemle, in structure if not spirit, the kinds of acti#ities associated with reellious youth. 4fter the

opening lecture, the three make up a pain!sustaining game where whoe#er can hold their finger under

hot water the longest is declared the winner. The typical hushed e/citement or per#erted pleasure

associated with such acti#ities is asent, howe#er, and replaced y a far more disturing clinical

efficiency and oredom. The initial state of the ldest is physically, socially and culturally remo#ed

from the real!world. 5n this way it actually models childhood, where the concerns and realities of the

rest of the world are irrele#ant. The three silings eha#e like children throughout the film in sutle

ways. Their general mannerisms are #aguely childlike. Their directness and simplicity in con#ersation

is e#ocati#e, also, of children.

The second part of the film acts as a kind of re#elation for the ldest. The sickly isolation from

the outside world in which she has remained since irth is swiftly roken y 8ocky and his 4merican

pals. 5n no way is she ale to unra#el the e/tent of the lies she has een told, so this re#elation occurs

on a less than conscious le#el. "he sees images of new people acting in strange, e/citing ways and

feels the desire, like many children and adolescents do, to reenact their eha#ior in her world. "he is

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#ery curious aout this world and egins secretly playing with the telephone. "he clearly realies that

watching these tapes is against the rules as she does it in secret. Taking the tapes and watching them,

then, can e characteried as a delierate act of reellion, and a particularly dangerous one as far as

%ather's system is concerned. The ldest'sFlashdance reenactment is a kind of condensation of the

film's asic process 9 she takes a structure &the dance* and deconte/tualies it, interprets it through the

demented lens resulting from her isolation from the rest of the world, so that the result is far more

primal and disturing &and argualy funny* than the deri#ati#e form. 5t also #isually signifies the

ldest's disco#ery of her own #oice, apart from the one +other and %ather want her to ha#e, another

coming!of!age element.

5t is the first act of reellion that directly leads to the more dramatic one at the end of the film,

which essentially consists of her lea#ing home, the fundamental coming!of!age act in many cultures.

ne important detail here is her rutal self!detoothing. The parents, of course, were aware that no

tooth would naturally fall out of a person's mouth, so they were e/pecting to keep the children there for

a long time. The ldest's action can e understood as a kind of self!inflicted rite of passage into

adulthood. 3er loody action at once reaks %ather's system, lierates herself from it, and transforms

her, in her mind, from someone incapale of sur#i#ing in the world to someone we would call an adult

9 someone who can li#e independently in the real world.

5n terms of #isual style, content, rhythm and aesthetic,Dogtoothears #irtually no resemlance

to cinema's coming!of!age genre!defining classics such asDazed and Confused, Ferris ueller!s Day

"ff, #he reakfast Clu$, or e#enJuno% (ut in each of these films, some fundamental world!e/panding,

reality!spawning transformation occurs inside the protagonist, e it ink %loyd's quitting footall or

the reakfast clu's collecti#e growth and transcendence of the social arriers that would stand in the

way of their friendship. There is a softness to these classics, a slow realiation, a arely conscious ut

definite shift y the end of the film. The rite of passage takes place as on a mattress. Dogtooth's

protagonist takes a dumell and smashes her mouth with it until she feels like an adult.

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5n what is argualy the emotional clima/ of the mo#ie 9 herFlashdance reenactment 9 she

"ome inert potential for growth is hinted at when she lackmails the security guard. 5t is this

5n order to satisfy his "on's growing liido, the %ather, who works at a factory set in real!world Greece,

has een hiring the facility's security guard to ha#e se/ with his "on on a regular asis. "he egins to

get ored with this arrangement and takes ad#antage of the two sisters, gi#ing them #alueless trinketsin return for oral se/. The ldest, disappointed y the performance of one such trinket &a glow!in!the!

dark headand that won't glow in the dark*, lackmails the security guard into gi#ing her 23" copies

ofRocky IV,JawsandFlashdance. 5nspired y this fine collection of 4merican cinema, she egins

acting out scenes and quotations from the films throughout her daily life. 3er %ather disco#ers the

tapes and eats her o#er the head with one of them &hopefully 8ocky 52*. ne night, during a ;ointdance!music recital put on y the silings, she #iciously performs famous choreography from

Flashdanceto the horror of the parents. Later that night, she

reaking out of a made!up fantasy world

rite of passage, self!incurred, painful