The Docile Canine

The Greek film "Dogtooth," directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, offers a thorough examination in the complex use of language as a form of social control. It is the story of one household in which words have their correspondences to original meaning broken, and then bonded to other meanings. "Sea" is defined as a kind of armchair. When one is tired, the children are taught to say they want to take a rest in the sea. "Highway" is defined as a blast of strong wind, while "excursion" refers to a kind of solid material.

The children, two daughters and one son who are already adults, are repeatedly told that the world outside is very dangerous, only the world within the high walls is safe and happy. The parents insist they can only go out when they can drive a car, and only when they lose their dogtooth (i.e. canine tooth) can they learn to drive a car. In the house, there is no access to the outside world. And the world created by the parents becomes a manifold metaphor for dizzying totalitarian control. One day the son hears an unknown word, "zombie" from the prostitute his father pays to keep his male urges satisfied. When he asks what a "zombie" is his mother tells him stoically, "A 'zombie' is a small yellow flower."