Dogtooth

So this is what happens when a petty and perverse little dictator of a dad (Christos Stergioglou) loses control of his three teenagers (Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, Hristos Passalis) and their disturbed mom (Michele Valley) by introducing a service-rendering security guard (Anna Kalaitzidou) to the totalitarian homestead. An angry-absurdist rebuke of oppressive social ritual, as played with straight-faced brutality dressed in soft white cotton: It’s like Luis Buñuel meets Michael Haneke! Fun! To non-film-nerds, director Yorgos Lanthimos’ grimly funny, nerve-poking satire, co-written with Efthimis Filippou, may have to remain an acquired distaste. With shrewdly dadaesque language recombinations, cool cinematography of face-obscured framings, and poignant perversions of Bach and Sinatra, this is one heady exercise. But the sexual tension and sinister violence keeps things from getting too cerebral. The DVD includes a useful interview with the director, who explains his original impulse toward something like science fiction—a way of wondering about the future of families. A bleak future, apparently.