Yorgos Lanthimos, a young talent from Greece, brought his second feature film Dogtooth to Cannes, France in 2009 to participate in the 62nd Cannes Film Festival. The "Un Certain Regard" Best Picture Award also represented Greece in the 83rd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. There are currently only four feature films directed by this dear friend. Since "Dog Tooth", people's attention has continued to increase, and all the works are eye-catching enough.
Greece's "1984" and "Animal Farm":
I once read such a piece of news that I don’t know if it’s true or not: A North Korean newspaper published a photo of an American lying on the beach bathing in the sun, but the accompanying text was that Americans were poor, had no clothes to wear, and could not eat enough , Many people starved to death, fell to the ground and no one cared. This interesting and thought-provoking news can basically be seen as a microcosm of the "Dogtooth" movie.
In a villa on the outskirts of the country, a couple completely cut off any contact with the outside world and their three children (one boy and two girls, there are actually four, in addition to these three children, a boy has disappeared), they All kinds of lies are used to shape three views for children that are different from those in the normal world. In such a utopia, the word sea (sea) becomes a leather chair, a highway becomes a strong wind, a shotgun becomes a chicken, the meaning of a zombie is interpreted as a flower, and a plane in the sky will fall down and become Toy models, kittens become cannibalistic demons, mothers can give birth to a dog... In the film, the father is the only person who can drive out, and learning to drive in the film is a person who is exposed to the outside world A necessary condition, and the other most important condition is that the person can leave the house after the right or left canine tooth is lost. Obviously these are all lies of the parents, and the final and only interpretation of whether the child has the ability to leave the house rests with the parents. With high walls all around, it is not impossible for a child to live in such an extreme environment where he is isolated from the world and does not know Qin and Han. In fact, the wooden gate leading to the outside world was a piece of cake for the three sons and daughters who were not small in size, but they always stood within the boundary line and never touched the outside world for half a step.
This phenomenon makes people feel terrified. Their parents (especially their fathers) not only limit their range of activities and freedom, but also the most important and most terrifying thing is that their thoughts are also restricted and enslaved. In this villa with beautiful scenery, it seems calm and leisurely on the surface, but the scenes under the camera sometimes reveal a strong and calm atmosphere of cruelty and violence, which is precisely in the heart of children in this alternative and distorted world. The dark tide is surging from time to time. In my opinion, the eldest daughter in the film is undoubtedly the one with the most rebellious spirit, and is naturally the one who has been taught the most by her parents.
It is not difficult to see that this is a film full of metaphors. From the perspective of the family, it can be said that it alludes to the patriarchal feudal patriarchy. From the perspective of the national society, it can be said that it reflects the problems of totalitarian rule and dystopia. It is a solid foundation of personal authority and a high concentration of power. From a big perspective, the father here is not only a representative of family affection, but also a symbol of power, and the mother is more like a loyal supporter of power, and their children are just the people who are ruled and subjected to ignorance. So we can't taste it from a realistic point of view, it's more like an experiment that blends all kinds of extreme situations together. Just like some literature and art, its exaggerated, deformed, twisted and perverted content can reflect real-life problems in a more realistic and concentrated manner. Isn't British writer George Orwell's "1984" such a conscientious and profound work? In a closed country, the most terrifying thing is that thoughts are unified, independent personalities are destroyed, and free thoughts are stifled. Let's not be disdainful of these extreme situations just because the director deliberately put them together. In fact, these "extremes" are becoming real not only in the past but also in the present. We must always remain rational, sober, and vigilant against totalitarian autocracy, and have more protection for freedom. These things seem far away, but they are actually very close.
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