Dogtooth

Rarely have I felt as much visceral hatred for a fictional villain as I did for this film’s monster, a middle-aged wage slave (Christos Stergioglou) who, with his wife’s help, has managed to keep three children entirely cut off from the outside world, right into adulthood. The strength of my reaction is a measure of how well this Greek drama is executed by its director, Giorgos Lanthimos, and his co-writer, Efthymis Filippou. They have given fiendish thought to the practicalities of bringing up children in a state of total ignorance, and have designed the details of the evil patriarch’s regime to create pitch-black comedy. In the performances of Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni and Hristos Passalis, the damage done to the children is portrayed in utterly credible ways. The film may have nothing new to say in its anthropology, but it’s a mesmerising case study.