[portable] — Dogtooth -2009-

and that they can only safely leave once they lose a "dogtooth" (a canine tooth). Controlled Interaction

: Dogtooth won the Un Certain Regard prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards. dogtooth -2009-

Realizing that “dogtooth” is a lie, the Older Daughter decides to escape. In the film’s final sequence, she knocks on the trunk of the family car, which is parked in the garage. The father, assuming she is hiding there as a game, gets in and starts driving. The daughter hides in the trunk, holding the headband Christina gave her. As the car approaches the outer gate—a barrier she has never passed—she climbs into the back seat. The film ends abruptly as the car slows down at the gate, leaving it ambiguous whether she will be discovered or finally see the outside world. and that they can only safely leave once

Heavily influenced by Wittgenstein and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Dogtooth shows that the limits of language are the limits of your world. The children cannot want to leave because they have no word for “leave.” Their liberation begins with the misuse of a noun. In the film’s final sequence, she knocks on

Here is the genius of Lanthimos’ script (co-written with Efthimis Filippou): The parents maintain control not through padlocks and chains, but through elaborate linguistic manipulation. We learn that the father has redefined common vocabulary: