2009 Greek movieRating: 16/20
Plot: A movie that shows why children who are home-schooled end up so weird. A father and mother with three children live in isolation within their walled property. Only the father leaves in order to manage a factory. The children play games for prizes and are educated incorrectly, learning the wrong words for things (a "zombie" is a yellow flower; a woman's sexy parts are called "typewriters") and that cats are deadly. Their naivete and ignorance about the world outside their walls effectively keeps them within the walls, as does the knowledge that their older brother was killed by a cat after leaving the family's property. A parking attendant who the dad brings home to fulfill his son's sexual needs becomes a negative influence as one of the daughters begins wondering just what is going on beyond those walls.
I think this is the first movie from Greece to make it on the blog. If Dogtooth is the typical Greek film, I definitely need to see more. I thought this movie was very, very funny. I shamefully laughed at a scene with a dog, a lot of the very dry humor with the strange dialogue, a dance scene that might rival the one in Napoleon Dynamite, a few allusions to 80's movies, and an announcement about the mother's pregnancy. At the same time, it's very, very creepy, so the laughs come with a feeling of unease. There's very little about the goings-on with this family that resemble anything close to normal, almost like Ionesco and Albee decided to collaborate for a Theater of the Absurd magnum opus and accidentally founded the Theater of the Really Really Absurd. Like that particular brand of drama, there's satire sprinkled in with all the nonsense. Not that I completely get what is being satirized or anything. The story's episodic, bouncing from surreal oddball family video to another. And there's just something about the almost sanitized way this family's story is told that makes it all even more disturbing. I imagine this would be a pretty divisive film. If you picked this out to watch with a hundred of your friends on movie night, I bet 40% would really hate it, 15% would love it, 25% would be intrigued and/or amused, 25% would not even be able to finish the movie, and 10% would stop coming to movie nights at your place. And 100% would agree that I'm really bad at math. Throw me in with the percentage of people who thought this was some good, disturbing fun. And who think I'm bad at math.
Cory sort of recommended this. So, what do you think this one's about? Overprotective parents and/or governments? Censorship? Education? Something else?
The other night when I was watching the suckfest that was the Academy Awards, they showed a two or three second clip of the girl dancing during the Foreign film nominations. I burst out laughing for a long time, and it was honestly the highlight of the night.
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction after seeing this was that it was an extreme tongue-in-cheek, but nevertheless devastating commentary on how badly parents can screw up their children. It actually made me consider all the little ways I could be messing up my kids without really meaning to. That can easily be expanded to thoughts on societal education and prejudice as a whole. I was just so bothered by some of the content, and the final scene from which I wanted to have more resolution, that I was hesitant to say I really liked it.
As time goes by (and the shock wears off), I am more and more impressed by this film. It is hilarious and horrific, often at the same time. It is a hard and almost embarrassing movie to recommend, but it is absolutely unique and very, very subversive. If I thought for a second that it's shocking scenes were for titilation then I would never recommend it, but I think a very powerful point (or several) were intentionally being made. Immediately after watching this I would have given it a 15. I would now give this memorable film a 17.
I kept wondering while I watched it...is this something that Cory sort of recommended because he really enjoyed it or does he just know that I'm strange enough to be the target audience? Probably a combination of the two...
ReplyDeleteIt's something I'll definitely watch again, but yeah, I'm not sure I'll be recommending it to too many people. Thanks for mentioning it to me...
You're welcome, and it was a combination. Recommending could be mistaken for condoning, and you are the only one I know to whom I would suggest this film. Glad you liked it.
ReplyDelete...strange is not the word I would have chosen though. Something more along the lines of open to the unusual.
ReplyDeletewatched most of this movie with my mouth agape. 18. my reaction to this was, with my christian upbringing i was about as poorly prepared for the world as these kids. cats are dangerous and from now on women's private parts ARE typewriters.
ReplyDeleteI almost rewatched this last week, but then I decided to watch the follow-up (Alps) on Hulu. I couldn't keep my eyes open unfortunately and will have to finish it this week.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think something is being said here about society. Abstinence, Religion, Big Brother Government all come to mind when I think about what this movie is trying to say. Why I loved this movie so much is that it said it without being pretentious. It said it creatively.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that it wasn't a straight comedy. The violence, and incest, and subjugation of women kept bringing things back into perspective. Don't get me wrong, though, I totally chuckled at the most inappropriate times.
18/20
There's definitely a fair share of black comedy, so I wouldn't say your chuckles were inappropriate. I'd agree with the lack of pretension although I can see some people seeing this and thinking it's very pretentious. You know, people who would most likely see anything with subtitles that was a little strange and think it was pretentious.
ReplyDeleteAbstinence, religion, big brother...I guess. I've seen three of this cat's films, and if I have any gripe, it's that they're left open to too much interpretation. I'm not sure he says what he wants to say very clearly. And although I do like movies that are open to interpretation, it's a little frustrating here. For me (and apparently for Anonymous up there) it's about indoctrination. Keeping people from being informed creates a sort of prison.
All that being said, cats are definitely dangerous.
Speaking of being left open, that ending! So she's stuck in the trunk? I don't get the ending at all...She escaped just to be stuck there until she suffocates? Until she releases the latch on her own somehow? She escaped one prison just to be stuck in another? Is it supposed to be ironic?
ReplyDeleteOk, maybe I'm overthinking the metaphor of this film. You guys are right about the indoctrination. I guess I was just trying to make some other connections. Maybe I'm reaching...
I forgot to talk about the tone. It wasn't as surreal as I assumed. We quickly talked about it, and I just went into it with an assumption that there was going to be something "other-worldly" about it. It held to realism and remained situational. I liked that.
Right, that's my favorite thing about this guy's movies. It dives into scenarios that are unquestionably bizarre, but it's all accepted as the norm for these particular worlds. The pacing, I think, helps. Both with this one and The Lobster (which I'm getting ready to poorly write about), things unfold in a way that almost forces you to accept everything. The weirdness creeps up on you.
ReplyDeleteThe ending. I don't know, man. I guess it's left open to interpretation. Even if she got herself out of the trunk, she's ill-equipped to handle the real world. She's still going to be arguing about who gets the airplanes that fall from the sky and thinking her private parts are called typewriters. So the way I read things is that the indoctrination's effects stretch beyond the family or home. She's sort of trapped in a trunk created by her own ignorance, right?