This episode we look at the early filmography of Yorgos Lanthimos, starting with DOGTOOTH!
This episode we look at the early filmography of Yorgos Lanthimos featuring DOGTOOTH! Famous for his more Western entries in his filmography, THE LOBSTER, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER, THE FAVOURITE and his recent Oscar winner POOR THINGS, we go back to the seminal turning point in his career: DOGTOOTH.
He's been a prominent figure in Greek Cinema prior (part of the aptly put "Weird Wave") but it's fair to say that DOGTOOTH put him on the International map, nominated for a Best Foreign Feature Oscar in 2009. Doing so made this deeply darkly comic film (or horror, depending on your interpretation) available to a much wider audience at the time. And what a treat that is!
It's funny how films like this have the habit of taking us all to the place we tend to stray to; the darkest places our humor can go honestly. Certainly Josh (not to throw him under the bus). Be warned, there is a lot of sarcastic chatter about inter-familial relations for which we do not seriously condone. But as we say, if you're not laughing, you're crying.
Sit in your "sea", turn down the "pussy" and smell your "zombies", here we go!
Welcome to On the BiTTE, the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. Uh, my name is Laura, and I am joined not only by my co host, Ryan.
Ryan: What do you call those little pastries? Those Greek pastries?
Laura: Which one?
Ryan: Black clava. Isn't it?
Josh: Baklava?
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Isn't it that pastry? They got, like, spinach in them and stuff?
Laura: No, spanikopita has got spinach.
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: Okay. Um. I don't know. I've been thinking about that all day.
Josh: No, I can't, um.
Ryan: Baklava?
Laura: I don't know what's in a baklava. Is that a bread?
Ryan: It's not like Musaka. Musaka is different. I'm thinking about. Yes. Well, I like Musaka as well.
Josh: I have a couple of Greek friends. I'll get them on the horn.
Ryan: Yeah, just get them on the phone right now.
Laura: Call them in to the podcast.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: And, uh, while you're doing that, we're also joined by our dear friend Josh.
Josh: Hello.
Laura: Who is back again. I don't know what number episode this year.
Josh: It's been a lot.
Laura: It's been a few.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: It's one of those things where, like, hey, we're going to do this movie. You want to talk about it?
Josh: Yeah, it was kind of one of those. You like dog tooth?
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Why don't you come on here? Like, fuck, yeah.
Ryan: Fuck, yeah. I was right. It is baklava.
Laura: Tell us what it is.
Ryan: Uh, baklava is a layered dessert made of filo-pastry sheets filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey. There are many competing proposals for the origin of baklava, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, there you go. That's it. The baklava, the pastry. Backlava.
Laura: Um, amazing.
Ryan: It's also Greek.
Laura: That would actually be a really good, um, spin off podcast for the. On the bite. For all of our food related movie.
Ryan: Dishes on the bite. I would do that. I fucking love food. Absolutely love it. Supposedly, baklava is originally from Turkey, Greece, and the Middle east.
Laura: All right.
Ryan: Yeah, there you go. Wow.
Laura: Uh, on the episode of on the beat that we're doing, we're going to be talking about the 2009 absurdist psychological drama Dog Tooth, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring many people whose names I will get horrifically wrong.
Ryan: Yes, I'm glad you're doing that, because I at least know how to say Lanthimos, and that's really about as far as I'll go.
Laura: Uh, okay.
Laura: Yes.
Laura: Christos.
Laura: Yes.
Laura: Christos Stergioglou as father Michelle Valley as mother, Angeliki Papoulia as older daughter, Christos Passalis as son and Mary Tsoni as younger daughter.
Ryan: Um, you're very eloquent, so it sounds quite adorable when you. As opposed to me brutalizing it where I'm just like. It just sounds like I'm trying to vomit every time I butcher someone's name. It's like I'm doing it deliberately.
Laura: I'm here for the feminine touch. I bring the feminine touch.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: And if people knew you in real life, they'd be like, wow, she's not that feminine.
Laura: Don't know what that means, but I'm going to take it as a compliment. So I'm trying to look like the hot chick. It's because, um, your flies bleeding. You're a long way off.
Ryan: Well, you're a bro in a woman's body.
Laura: That is very true. I do like Will Ferrell movies quite a bit. And as everyone knows, my main boy is Paul Schrader. So, yes, I'm a lonely boy in a lady's body.
Ryan: I find out from someone rapes.
Josh: Have you committed.
Laura: We don't need to put numbers to it.
Josh: And also, that's subjective.
Laura: Absolutely subjective. Women don't realize that when they say no, it's actually a yes.
Josh: Is that the case?
Ryan: It's okay. Um, but if somebody fucked you while.
Josh: You were passed out, that's date rape.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Yes.
Laura: Or just regular? Depends on who you're with.
Ryan: Right. Okay.
Laura: Wow.
Josh: This isn't fitting the theme of. About the movie we're about to talk about.
Laura: Your father doesn't want anyone else in the house, so he makes your sister have sex with. Wait. Makes your son and your daughter have sex together.
Ryan: Well, hold on. He gave them the choice?
Laura: Yeah. Oh. Between one sister or the other sister.
Ryan: Yeah, they had that, um, they seemed okay with it. They had the bath time audition. Yeah. Where he figured out which one he wanted.
Josh: I mean, we started to get into the whole consent versus coercion debate at that point. How can you consent when you've been coerced?
Ryan: The father in this movie has really got his family in check, though. He has really got it figured out.
Laura: He's, uh, cracked that harpoon and got everyone into shape.
Ryan: Maybe one of my favorite parts in the entire movie is when he gets the fucking snorkel on and goes in with the harpoon gun into the swimming pool. He has fairly tight reins over this family. Um, well, I disagree with some of the things on it, but at least. Oh, really? He's a good barometer for. I think the modern man and getting your family in check.
Josh: This is the darkest episode of this I've ever been on.
Laura: Holy shit. Are you. This guy knows how to handle a.
Ryan: You know, he's only second to say Joseph Fritzel, who kept a woman in his basement and forced her to have his children.
Laura: That's kind of one of the many creepos of the world who kidnaps a young girl.
Josh: I mean, that guy succeeded where Jimmy Page failed.
Ryan: Well, he was a real time monster in his Austrian basement.
Laura: So we're talking about dog tooth. And I'm going to throw you the synopsis, which is pretty long. Uh, from letterboxd. Oh, it says three teenagers. That's how it starts. But I'm pretty sure these. At least the daughter's got to be 25, but that's just three teenagers. What it says, but I'm pretty sure.
Ryan: All these, I think only one of.
Laura: People are in there.
Ryan: Teenager, probably.
Laura: Kids are in their 20s. They've got to be.
Ryan: They look like that? Yeah, they look like they've been cast. It would be more synopsis if they.
Laura: Were in their twenty s, three twenty something. They're combined to an isolated country estate that could very well be on another planet. The trio spend their days listening to endless homemade tapes that teach them a whole new vocabulary. Any word that comes from beyond their family abode is instantly assigned a new meaning. Hence the sea refers to a large armchair, and zombies are little yellow flowers. Having invented a brother whom they claim to have ostracized for his disobedience, the uber controlling parents terrorize their offspring into submission.
Ryan: God, that's a hell of a synopsis.
Josh: There's a lot I don't agree with the terrorize part. I don't think that there's any terror.
Laura: No.
Ryan: Because it's like Stockholm syndrome. They've got no abuse.
Josh: Yeah, certainly it's abusive, but I wouldn't.
Laura: Call the whole thing from birth to now is abuse.
Josh: But again, I wouldn't call it terrorizing.
Ryan: But again, the whole thing is like, this is the environment they've grown up in, so they have no idea. They have no frame of reference for, uh, yeah, if it is abuse or.
Josh: Can't, you know, judge other people's cultures.
Ryan: Of course not. No, you can't.
Josh: Um, I mean, just think how offended they would be by McDonald's.
Ryan: Well, do you think this is how they roll in Greece?
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Laura: Shit. Done.
Josh: This is every single family.
Laura: Totally.
Josh: This is representative of Greece.
Laura: This was Lanthimos' call. For help for Greece. We gotta get the word out there.
Ryan: You guys, he was the whistleblower.
Laura: He knocked his tooth out, and then he was able to leave via car.
Ryan: Good.
Laura: So that's how we're able to see all of his, uh, films.
Ryan: I mean, look, if anyone convinced me that Frank Sinatra was my grandpa, then, yeah, I'd be fine with it. Probably part so much.
Laura: Okay. Anyway, the tagline, which is amazing, I think, is the cat is the most feared animal there is.
Ryan: Random. Yeah, kitty.
Laura: That poor cat gets it. Not too many films out there that I can think of. Maybe I'm just focusing on the dogs, but there's a lot of dog murder and dog death in films. Not this one.
Josh: Yeah, there's, uh, a less cat in movies, but it's usually not as graphic either. No, I mean garden.
Laura: Cheers.
Josh: That's pretty rough.
Ryan: Uh, I remember pretty funny.
Josh: Stupid laughing in the theater like an asshole nobody else was. It was really awkward, and it was one of those things. I tried to hold it back for half a second, and it just couldn't be held. And so I loud idiot laughed and then sucked it back in. So I wouldn't be that asshole laughing at the fucking mutilated cat on screen.
Laura: I actually laughed just like that when I watched mother.
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Laura: With the baby. Uh, because it was me and one other person, and I gaffed.
Josh: Well, because it's clearly, like, when they snap it, it clearly sounds like celery. It's so funny. A giant, shaky camera, violent orgy of people wanting to eat this infant is amazing.
Laura: Yeah. I really.
Josh: So sweaty.
Laura: Made me laugh a. Oh, wow. Speaking of, I don't know, families. Um, so this is Lanthimos' second feature film that he directed, like, all on his own, right after. So his first one, we were talking about it yesterday, Josh.
Laura: Right.
Laura: It was, um, my best friend. Yeah. Oh, I'm jumping ahead. So I'm already telling the films that he's done when I need Ryan to tell me about it.
Ryan: Yeah, I was going to tell you exactly what you were just about to.
Laura: Say to hush him mouth.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: So Yorgos Lanthimos is a Greek filmmaker. Um, you'll have known him from the recent spell of, uh, uh, the awards run from this past year, um, because poor things came out and did relatively quite well. Um, but he's received multiple accolades, baftas, golden glows, blah, blah. Um, but in the 1990s, he directed a series of videos for greek dance theater companies. He's also directed tv commercials, music videos, short films, and experimental theater plays. Um, and you could probably say that he's part of the postmodern film movement, greek weird Wave, which was new to me. Um, but his films often feature, uh, uniquely framed cinematography, deadpan acting and characters with stilted speech. I've got, like, a list of some of his short films here, but he's made short films all the way back from 95 up until present day. You probably would have seen a couple of his short films. He did one with, uh, I think it's Matt Dylan.
Laura: Um.
Ryan: Uh, that was Nimic, I think, in 2019. Um, but yes, in terms of his feature film.
Laura: Oh, yeah, we watched that.
Ryan: Yeah, it's good.
Laura: It is good.
Ryan: It is good.
Laura: Have you seen that one?
Josh: What is it called again?
Laura: Nimic.
Ryan: Nimic, yeah, I think that's the same on YouTube somewhere.
Josh: Uh, it's been open on my browser forever and I haven't watched it.
Ryan: He's got a really good bunch. Yeah, there's a bunch there. Um, but, yeah, it starts off in 2001 with my best friend Canada in 2005, and then Dog Tooth comes in 2009. Um, after that, you have alps in 2011, Lobster 2015. And then we're kind of obviously getting into the slightly more popular, uh, it's more westernized work, I guess, coming into lobster.
Laura: Lobster is so good.
Ryan: Uh, killing of a sacred deer in 2017, the favorite in 2018. Uh, poor things, obviously, 2023. And he's got a new movie coming out in 2024 called Kinds of Kindness.
Laura: Um, hooray.
Josh: Yes, I did.
Laura: I'm excited. He's got a really good run in my book. I haven't seen anything I don't like yet.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: So that's nice.
Ryan: Yes, I'd say for me, yeah, I've not seen all of his stuff. It's relatively quite small filmography, but everything I've seen, I quite enjoy.
Josh: Um, yeah, I'm not a huge fan of my best friend. Um, it just feels a little. No, it actually doesn't feel experimental. It feels pretty straightforward, silly comedy. Uh, I don't know, it just didn't do a lot for me. Um, but Kinetta's, it's an experimental film. It really is. It's pretty hard to follow. Um, I've read, like, three different interpretations of what it's even about. Um, and I will say it's not boring, but the narrative of it is tough. Um, I personally think that it would have made more sense for him to make alps in between that and dog tooth because Dogtooth is just such a huge step forward for him. And Alps is good, but not nearly as good as dog tooth.
Laura: I haven't seen alps yet. But I was reading. It's like an inverse of this film.
Laura: Mhm.
Laura: In a way, of sorts.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: He was like, this is someone trying to escape a family. And the other one is someone trying to get in, but I haven't seen it yet. I'm looking forward to. I was, when I was researching this, I found out that, uh, Yorgos Lanthimos was an actor in a friend's film. And he gets naked and I saw his balls earlier today in a film. Attenberg from 2010.
Ryan: Yeah, you said attenberg. I heard Attenborough. Like the David Attenborough story. Yeah, or like the Richard Attenborough. Yorgos played like Richard. Vicky Attenborough.
Josh: The directors cut of Gandhi, horse cock.
Ryan: Well, it's just him in the editing room. Like editing Gandhi. We need more Gandhi.
Laura: Well, Attenberg's on Kanopy, so as soon as our thing re ups, because we watched too many movies on Canopy this month. Can't wait to watch it.
Ryan: Well, you say we. You mean you watch the whole thing and then also Canopy has a habit of glitching and taking away views from you as well, which I don't know if I believe you at this point because it seems to happen a lot.
Laura: Listen, canopy, I appreciate because it's from our local libraries and we need to support our local public libraries, everyone. So hoopla, one rental.
Ryan: I disagree.
Laura: And I didn't even get to watch the movie. I was trying to watch Morvern Callar and I didn't get to watch it twice.
Ryan: Wow.
Laura: I complained to Canopy, it's okay. They rectified it for the most part. So the idea for this story came from a conversation that Yorgos had with some friends where he made fun of the fact that they were getting married and like, having kids. Because today he was saying that so many people get divorced and kids are being raised by single parents. And he said, there's no point in getting married. And he said, although I was obviously just joking, they got extremely defensive. And he said this made him realize how someone he knew and who he never would have expected to react that way freaks out when you mess around with your family. So the initial idea was about a man who would go to extremes to protect his family and who would try to keep his family together forever by keeping his children away from any influence from the outside world, being firmly convinced that this is the best way to raise them.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Like every great project, it just started with a bad joke.
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Josh: I get it.
Laura: And, uh, the name of it came around because he didn't like the sound of canine, because that was the tooth that they were going to talk about. He just thought that dog tooth sounded better. He thought canine sounded too clinical.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: And since there's a lot of wordplay in the film anyway, uh, or the.
Ryan: Title of, uh, that Belushi movie about the dog, the police dog. Canine.
Josh: Yeah. Classic.
Laura: Jesus.
Laura: Get out of here.
Ryan: What's wrong? I don't know. Canine is okay. Like, in the pantheon, it is, uh.
Josh: The most okay dog that is ever okayed. There is nothing remarkable about that in any way.
Ryan: You can't get mad at that movie.
Josh: But the fact that you could even remember the title blows my mind. And it's only two characters.
Laura: Yeah, it's a k and a nine.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Amazing.
Ryan: It's, um, clever.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: It is the literal definition of just, like, content. It's so incredibly empty.
Laura: I still try to not watch movies with dogs in them. I get worried about.
Ryan: I don't think the dog doesn't die. It's not like Turner and Hooch.
Laura: I had to leave the room.
Josh: I can't watch that shit to jerk off. I get it.
Laura: Yeah. I had to be in my way.
Ryan: Too horn for me.
Laura: So hard.
Josh: Is that the sound you make when you're horny?
Laura: Oh, my God, it's terrifying.
Josh: Awful.
Laura: He's going to talk like that through the rest of the episode.
Ryan: Yeah, get out while you still can.
Laura: Um, yeah, uh, Lanthimos also says that girls and women in general are stronger characters than boys and they're smarter.
Ryan: I would agree. They are. Yeah, they are.
Laura: Uh, he said that it was just natural for me that the older boy would be the father's favorite, but at the same time, he tries the hardest and seems somewhat more immature. It also has to do with the fact that boys are seen as much more deserving of having sex and entitled to do more things than girls in Greek culture. See, we can't talk crap about culture, right. Uh, when it comes to the girls, the parents never think that they need to be educated about sex and that they deal with them in a much more conservative way. So it creates this bizarre situation where they just discard any kind of thought about this with regard to girls. For the boy, however, they're very proud of him having sex.
Josh: Man, Greece is weird. I'm really glad we're not like that here.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Weird waves.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: It's so weird that, uh, men are lauded for their sexual endeavors and women.
Josh: Are just, well, I'm doing my part by. I have never been lauded for my sexual behaviors. I haven't as much as gotten a handshake pat on the back. Good job, little fella.
Laura: Ah.
Laura: Was it that movie? What's your number? That Anna Ferris movie with Chris Evans where they're talking about how I think it was that movie. If not, it doesn't really matter. But if a man tells you how many people he's had sex with, you have to, uh, cut it in half. And if a woman tells you how many people they had sex with, you have to double it to get the real.
Josh: That sounds familiar. I remember what that's from, but that died.
Ryan: Okay.
Josh: I do remember that conversation.
Laura: I don't know that movie.
Josh: Is that true?
Laura: Um, I've never lied about it. This might make it worse. I just don't remember.
Josh: That's excellent.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Just don't know.
Ryan: I don't know if I remember either. I don't know if I want to remember.
Laura: If I made a list, there would be things I would miss, for sure.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Probably because of alcohol.
Ryan: I don't think it's a good period of my life. I don't really want to remember it.
Laura: Well.
Ryan: Really?
Laura: I'm sorry.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, you're swinging 20s.
Laura: What?
Ryan: Swinging. My swinging 20s?
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: All right.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: No, my age. Um, yeah. No. I don't know. I thought it was something else you were referring to.
Laura: No.
Ryan: Um, yes. No. I do like how this film starts, and this was the first time I'd ever seen it, but I do like the way that this starts, and it spoon feeds you little bits of information because, uh, I was intrigued by everything that was going on. Um, at one point, though, I thought Christina was wearing an eye patch, and this was like, this is where. Because some of my notes are kind of me literally thinking out loud. So there was a security guard with an eye patch. No.
Laura: A. Ah.
Ryan: Blindfold. Are they. Wait, what? A prostitute? No, Christina's here. And I was, um. Uh, yeah, it was crazy because this is, like, the first moment, as well, and it's only, like, six minutes in. And, I mean, for me to just kind of describe that moment to you is pretty much how the film goes. And it does spoon feed you just a little bit. Just little bits and bobs until you kind of finally get, uh, an interesting idea of what's actually going on here.
Laura: It never fully explains what's going on. You never know the backstory of why the parents decided to raise their kids this way. There's times where I thought, do people even know they have kids? Did they have the kids at home in secret?
Josh: I like that. That's not addressed. I think that's good.
Laura: No, it's great. I don't need to know any of that. And how it has progressed and exacerbated over the years. I'm sure that it started small, and then it just kind of got out of control because the father. Until they're in this situation where, uh, that they're in now, well, the father.
Ryan: Is the only one that leaves. He's the only one that has any sort of connection to the outside world, and he's the one grabbing the supplies and bringing them back.
Josh: I like that. You call that woman supplies, I guess.
Laura: Sex supplies. I think she used to leave. They said that she played handball and she was professional handball player.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And his coworker really wanted to have drinks with them. And he's, uh.
Ryan: Oh, okay, well, back to this dick scene, though, and talking about handballs. Christina's there, and they start taking their clothes off.
Laura: You're going right into the dick scene, huh?
Ryan: I think we should. Yeah, I think we should just get in because there's a few. There's a lot of stuff that we're going to have to cover. And they start taking their clothes off. Stylistically, the film is effectively made up of a lot of one-rs. I would say that they are incredibly unconventional frames that are held. But I do respect it for the fact that even two way conversations you're only ever shown, say, one perspective during the course of a conversation. And this is one shot. Uh, they take their clothes off. It's very brief. He turns. This is the brother, I guess, the middle sibling.
Laura: Um.
Laura: Hold your horses for a second.
Laura: Okay.
Laura: Rushing through this penis scene.
Ryan: Well, no, I want you to get this thing I wrote down because I thought was funny.
Laura: Hold on.
Ryan: Where he gets a wee hand wank to get the engine moored and chops away.
Laura: This is six minutes and 29 seconds into the film. It's interesting at this point because you don't know who this woman is. She's blindfolded. This man drives her to a gated off house and just goes into the son's bedroom, folds up the blanket on his bed, and it's just like, here you go. And it's weird because at that point, you don't really know who she is or where she came from. If the family knows her, if there's other people that come to the house.
Ryan: It is revealed later where she's from, though.
Laura: Yeah, of course. But we're only six minutes in. She's the only person who has a name in the whole film.
Ryan: Yeah, pretty much except for Bruce. Bruce she names herself.
Laura: But yeah. Uh, it's weird. When they walk into the room, the sun is doing like, chest exercises. Like Josh Brolin and Goonies. You remember.
Ryan: That's why they tie him up to that chair so they can go on their adventure. One eyed willie.
Laura: The room is like. It's like fluorescent lighting or something with that green. It's kind of like that gross green color in the bedroom as well. I don't know if you noticed that. I just thought it was an icky color.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I don't know.
Laura: Because the rest of the house and the garden is gorgeous.
Josh: It is.
Ryan: Yeah. Um, we wouldn't say it's bleached, but, uh, it's quite overexposed. There's, uh, a lot of whites. Um, it's kind of pastely, I would say, in a little bit. Certainly with some of the decorations and things and the way that people are colored, uh, in with their clothing and things like that.
Laura: Um, yeah, she does give them that little tug. That little.
Ryan: Yeah. Just we hand wank to get the engine mowed and chops away. Dry bone. That's what I wrote down.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Uh, it's a lot of things in these movies where the woman's not given very much time. So she kind of has to be ready regardless. No, dear, straight in, naked.
Laura: Thank you. I was waiting for that. That woman is dry as a bone.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: You don't know what she was doing before she went in that room.
Ryan: She did not look interesting.
Josh: Maybe in the car. She had a job to do. She was prepping.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: Was she embarrassed in front of the dad?
Laura: No.
Ryan: I mean, I'd be scared in front of the dad. That dad is fucking sociopathic.
Josh: Or maybe the dad made her do it.
Ryan: I mean, he was m ready. Well, they do have to point out as well, he's not particularly selective. It's like she's the security guard at the place where he works.
Laura: The only woman of the outside world that we ever see.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: She's cute, though. Not a bad show.
Ryan: Well, who's the other woman in the outside world that we see?
Laura: That's it.
Ryan: She is the only woman. Right. Okay.
Laura: Yeah. He's wearing those white pants and he just takes them down. Just that butt.
Ryan: Well, he holds them, he folds, then he puts them down. At least he folds them.
Laura: Yeah. Well, if he doesn't fold them, he's not going to get a sticker for his headboard.
Josh: That's true.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, I do like that little touch. I think that's great.
Laura: Well, once he fills up that headboard with stickers. He gets to pick the night's entertainment, which I wish wasn't just home movies of them sitting still.
Ryan: I like it, though, that they've obviously watched this whole movie several hundred times because she's able to mouth it word for word, beat for beat, that entire time. Because we do know they have access to videos. There's adult videos and stuff that they also have, but obviously the children aren't. Well, the 20 year olds aren't watching that.
Laura: No, they're not allowed.
Ryan: They're not allowed to watch the pornography. It's very quickly from that one moment, you start to conjure up ideas of, like, Stockholm syndrome. And, uh, that reminded me a little bit. I don't know if this is, like, it's not direct kind of thing, but, like, zone of interest. It kind of gave me that sort of feeling because you're in a confined space.
Josh: It's confined, and it's sterile.
Ryan: Yes.
Josh: All of it's very sterile.
Ryan: Yeah. It's just not as disturbing as that movie is, but certainly it has make believe.
Josh: Rape is a lot less upsetting than real genocide.
Laura: That's true. That is true.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Um, that when Christina's about to leave, though, and they're all on the couch and they want to take a video, they're like, oh, let's take a video. And then the son runs in and sits next to them, and they're just sitting there smiling while he takes a home video.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: It killed me. I laughed so much. Oh, we don't have one with Christina in it. Come on, sit down. And then they just smile.
Ryan: Yeah, well, that's the thing. You're assuming that Christina, as well, is probably the most normal out of the bunch, as she has an interaction with the outside world. She just kind of really is.
Laura: He is a normal person. She's a person.
Ryan: She has a normal life in the world.
Josh: Yeah. She's got a side hustle.
Laura: Yes.
Josh: Times are tough.
Laura: Yeah. I don't know how much money she's making.
Josh: Uh, I would imagine more than ubering.
Ryan: Well, yeah. I don't know when Greece had that economic crisis, but certainly, yes. If that was ponied up to you, I'd probably.
Josh: Probably fuck that boy for probably.
Ryan: He's 20 years old. Ah, he's in his 20s. Yeah, he looks a lot.
Josh: I mean, you would definitely get that hole ready before you got there because you think ahead.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Uh, I'm not going in. Dry bone.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: You know what? In that bag, she's got a pretty big bag. So she's probably got something in there to help because she knows.
Ryan: Uh, a giant jar. Yeah. Just get it ready, get yourself set, and. Sorry. Yeah, um, exactly.
Laura: Oh, God.
Laura: I'm thinking ahead.
Ryan: You are thinking ahead. You know what I thought was kind of one of the most cruel moments, and it's with very particular mouthwashes as well. But, um, have you ever had that Listerine? You've left it in your mouth and it's been in your mouth for so long, and then it starts to burn the inside of your mouth.
Laura: Yeah, I was thinking about that when that was the punishment for him, but usually for me, if you leave Lister in your mouth too long, all the spit gets in there and it's diluted, so it doesn't hurt so bad. So I don't know which.
Josh: There's strong, uh, um, IBn. It obviously has to be alcohol based. Yeah, it will hurt.
Ryan: Um, yeah, that's what I thought about it when it happened, and he was so desperate to spit it out. That has happened with mouthwash, with me before. Um, not as fun as the anesthesia game, which I think everyone should play. I don't disagree.
Laura: All of these weird, violent endurance games, like putting your hand under a hot tap and then.
Ryan: Yeah, that did make me laugh when they were confused about the tap situation and how they were going to do it, how they could regulate the temperature on three taps, but it would be easier just to have your fingers under the same tap.
Laura: Yes, of course. Um, probably the bathroom.
Ryan: And they were still confused even after they'd figured it out. Um, yeah, no, you guys probably found it funnier than I did. Certainly. This is the first time I'd saw it, so I was kind of getting acquainted with its tone.
Laura: Yeah, of course.
Ryan: Uh, I would not disagree with people thinking it's horrific, but then once you do kind of adjust yourself to what it's trying to do, at least from a comedy perspective, because if you're not laughing at this film, you're crying because it's super fucked up, some of this stuff that happens in this film.
Laura: Yeah, that's true.
Ryan: I think the unbridled cruelty of this father who, uh, I, strangely enough, started to respect a fair amount because the charade he's playing and the games he's up to. I was like, holy shit, this is something to be respect. Like, he's a fucking genius for some of the things that he was getting away with.
Laura: That's hard to.
Ryan: There's so many weird things that happen in the film with the toy planes and all this sort of stuff. And it's like, oh, they fall out of the sky. Because it's like that bit in Father Ted where Father Ted's describing to Dougal that the cows that are just outside of the window that are small, are small because they're far away. And the little plastic one he's got in his hand is because it's small.
Laura: Right. It's exactly the same.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Yeah. I love Father Ted.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Great show.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, that's a standout moment. You've seen Father Ted, haven't you, Josh?
Josh: I've not. I don't know what that is.
Ryan: Holy fuck.
Laura: It's really funny.
Ryan: You are in for a treat.
Josh: Okay.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Oh, dear. I wrote down, when you see the dad's balls. Unfortunate.
Ryan: I did also put it.
Laura: They put their headphones on.
Ryan: I love that moment.
Laura: And then he leaves his tank top on.
Josh: Yeah. When he just hooz it.
Ryan: Yeah, he does porky pegging. Yeah, well, he does a lot of porky pegging because the second moment where we see him, he's porky pegging as well.
Josh: Me too.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Um.
Ryan: I don't want her to see my chest.
Josh: No, I just was all over on the house. You guys should call before you come.
Laura: Over.
Josh: Because there is a good chance, you know, in the kitchen, making some Taylor swift t shirt and socks.
Ryan: It's like frying up some bacon.
Laura: Keep the socks on. Oh, yeah, that's, um, spattering. God, there's so much random violence, which I think is so funny, considering, um, how very sterile it is the whole time. And the outside is so beautiful. That pool is nice. It's very green and lush outside.
Ryan: But what you find out is that the way to control people in general is to just inject a little bit of fear into them.
Laura: Well, a lot of the violence, though, comes from the siblings themselves. They'll get angry. It's like when I was a little kid and my brother would annoy me, we would fight, right? We'd fight and we'd scratch and push and just, like, destroy things.
Ryan: Uh, I'd pick up a knife and slash.
Laura: But that's the thing. These kids get older and they haven't grown out of that child.
Josh: They're not emotionally mature in any way. They're incapable of it. So they have the physical ability of an adult with the mental capacity of, like, a six year old.
Laura: Exactly. So, yeah, you have access to a knife and you're mad at your brother. Slash him in the arm.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: There you go.
Ryan: Yeah, that was super fun. And also because these acts of violence effectively come out of nowhere. It makes it even more shocking, uh.
Laura: Because there's no red in the movie until someone gets cut or someone murders a cat. Um, in a horrible way.
Ryan: Fucking cat. And it's the smallest cat as well.
Laura: It was like a kitten. It was a kitten. And then the model of the dead cat was like a bigger cat. That was a very funny model of a dead cat. Yeah, it did look hung out.
Ryan: Did look very stupid.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: And his entrails out as well. It's just like, okay, that helped.
Laura: It helped.
Ryan: That white shot when he puts those shears down on that cat's fucking insane. It's fucking crazy.
Laura: Really bad.
Ryan: Like, holy fuck. Fucking mad.
Laura: And then when the dad comes back, right, and he's like, oh, I'm going to use this to my advantage, right. And he cuts up his pants and puts. I look like paint that he was just covering.
Ryan: It was just paint. Yeah, it was just paint.
Laura: And he's like, this is the most dangerous creature that's out there. He says that cats eat children's flesh. Like the whole body eats the whole body. Most dangerous creature out there is a cat. And then he teaches them to bark like dogs, which is one of my favorite things.
Ryan: It scares the cats away. Yeah, it scares the kitty cats away.
Laura: Because the dog they have in training isn't ready yet. He's only on stage two of five.
Ryan: Yeah. And that dog looks fucking terrified as well. Fucking animal.
Laura: Because they have all those Dobermans, but the dog they have is like a fluffy.
Ryan: It's like a mongrel.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: It's just like a, um, cross breed dog that's just, um. I don't know.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: If dogs are half ten or a dozen in Greece. But yeah, they were dead set on getting that dog trained.
Laura: Um.
Laura: Do you want an animal or a friend? So you see that instead of just seeing the dad's balls, you do see. You caught me onto that.
Ryan: I thought, well, no, I think maybe it might have been the subtitle issue because the subtitles cover that whole bottom of the frame.
Josh: Interesting.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: And it was only when it disappeared, I was like, no, there it is. I can see it. That scene in general is just fucking odd because there's the blowjob on the t because they're watching porn.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: And she's like lying on his, uh, she's got her head on his knee and her tops open so her boobs are, uh, exposed. They're just having a normal chat and he's porky pegging it still. Um, and she's like, I'm pregnant.
Laura: That was such a weird conversation, too. Yeah, because she is saying how she's pregnant and it's twins and it's a boy or a girl. Boy and a girl. And then he goes, two boys. And she's like, thinks about it. No. And he's like, what about triplets? And I'm like, are you choosing? What are you doing?
Ryan: Well, they're conjuring m up.
Laura: Got to be that in the film. Like, the actor is 57 years old. Okay, so how old is this woman? I don't think she's pregnant at all.
Josh: No.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: It's just weird that it's the two of them having that conversation, and then they use it as leverage against the kids later.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I think whether or not, if you.
Laura: Guys are good, I don't have to have this kid. I'll make sure that I don't. And if you guys are bad, I don't have any choice. I'm going to have to have these kids.
Ryan: Who knows? She might not be pregnant. I will point out, um, you do say, wow, that conversation is quite weird. There are plenty of weird conversations that happen in this movie.
Laura: It's just an od one between the two people who are in the know.
Josh: I mean, arguably four things is Lanthimos' most, normal movie, like, straightforward narrative dialogue. Nothing too. No, that you have to piece together. And that movie, favorite, though? Uh, well, favorite, I think, is the same way. My point is, though, is that even his most mainstream, normal thing is pretty fucking weird.
Laura: Yes. That other papa porky pig scene is 48 minutes and 56 seconds. The porno watching scene that we've been talking about.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: They were just casually watching some saucy videos.
Laura: I'm sure that it was still on. You know what I mean? They hadn't turned the VCR off yet.
Josh: I love that it's a VCR.
Laura: Hell, yeah. It's, like, really good. Everything in the house is from when you don't have a time frame for it. But it seems as though everything in the house is around 25 years old. Right?
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Like, everything is about how old the kids are.
Laura: Exactly.
Josh: Stopped.
Laura: Exactly. Well, a videotape is a much more visceral thing to smash someone with.
Josh: Yeah.
Laura: A DVD isn't going to do the job.
Ryan: No.
Laura: So you need the tape.
Ryan: Although they do that in old boy, though, where he snaps that CD and he fucking slashes Odesu's friend's throat with that fucking.
Josh: I feel like that would be a weird tonal shift in this movie if all of a sudden he slashed the throat of somebody, probably in reference to old boy. It was a strange homage to old boy halfway through dog dead.
Ryan: It's definitely that funny.
Laura: The second or third Hellraiser movie, that cenobite that's got the CD.
Ryan: Yeah, that's the third one who fires CDs. He's amazing. Well, he is the best one. Yeah, he's the scariest as well. But he's also comical. Um, yeah, no, I do like the fact that he's like, get me the duct tape. He tapes that feet that video cassette to his hand, and then he just batters her with his videotape.
Laura: Mean, we're. Yeah, we're not going to break down every single thing. There's way too much. But the fact that Christina has been trading trinkets for sexual favors from the girls because the boy is inept at.
Laura: Um.
Laura: Um. Or cunnilingus. Sorry, Felicia is for a man. Cunnilingusis for a woman.
Ryan: Yeah, there you go, bro.
Laura: Sorry. I know.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Uh, you lost your, uh, fellatio is for a phallus.
Josh: Cunnilingusis for cunt. Come on. This is right.
Laura: Yes.
Josh: Science.
Laura: That is science. I am a scientist. My bad. I'm more focused on the fellat in my job of doing this podcast. I am. That's what we talk about.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: But anyway, yeah, so she's trading trinkets, like a sparkly headband or hair gel, which she didn't want. And then so she gets those videotapes, which kind know modern media. That's what spirals kids out of control these days.
Josh: Ain't that the dangerous?
Ryan: Well, the first time I watched Jaws and Rocky, I started spiraling out of control, and I've obviously turned into the monster I am today.
Josh: I mean, you guys, too, run a dick podcast. Model members of society right here.
Laura: That's right.
Ryan: I have zero. Yeah, zero shame. And we'll never have children. It's not like we'll have to give up our legacy or anything. It dies with us.
Josh: Good for.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: I mean, we named our dog Bruce just as the eldest daughter wanted to name herself.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: Which is weird, because, uh, why did she call herself Bruce?
Laura: That is very interesting, because we think.
Ryan: Well, I thought it was a reference to Jaws, but that's not even uttered in the movie because that's a behind the scenes thing.
Laura: I think it's probably still just a reference. Yeah, just a little wink.
Ryan: It's fine. I don't mind that cheeky little Yorgos wink, because he does do that. Um, but, yeah.
Laura: Um, do you have a. No, you don't okay, just checking.
Ryan: Making sure his phone and put it back.
Josh: No, that's fine.
Ryan: Everything's fine.
Laura: Well, I was thinking, like, is there a Bruce in rocky or in flash dance? And I couldn't really think of any.
Ryan: Was flash dance the other thing?
Laura: Well, there was only two tapes, and so I'm a little bit like. But she does a flash dance dance.
Ryan: Oh, yeah, she does.
Laura: At the end. I don't know where the third videotape came from. Unless she got that it was in the porno stash. Maybe it was room or something.
Ryan: Well, yeah, the rocky and the jaws stuff is pretty recognizable because she's just seeing lines from the movies. Um, yeah, flash dance is a little bit more, uh, obscure, um, the way it's kind of depicted in the film. But, uh, why are we talking about that?
Laura: I know. I was going to say this is a great segue into, um. God, should we have a trigger warning or something? No, it's fine for incest.
Ryan: A trigger warning for.
Josh: It's consensual incest. Nobody's raping nobody.
Ryan: They allowed the boy to pick which sibling he wanted to have sex with. And then is, uh, it would be.
Laura: Considered a little have to say no. But, God, how long? I mean, we could probably talk about that for an hour. It's just the fact that Christina's not allowed in the house anymore because why.
Ryan: Would we want to think about it for an hour?
Laura: Because there's a lot to unpack there.
Ryan: Well, I'd rather not unpack it.
Laura: I'd rather just put in 17 minutes and 40 seconds. Okay, so this is, like ten minutes.
Josh: Shy of the end.
Laura: Yeah. Where you get to be left with that flavor in your.
Ryan: Oh, for God's sake. The flavor. The fucking incest.
Laura: The mouthfeel of the incest. Right. Because his hired, uh, vagina isn't allowed in the house anymore because she gave the videotapes which ruined eldest daughter's mind.
Ryan: The dad whacked her over the head with a VCR.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: So he did that.
Laura: Yes. That was also very brutal. I kind of laughed a little bit.
Josh: But I laugh at that every time.
Laura: Because he just unplugs it really delicately and, like, walks over and she goes, oh, no. It's so heavy as well. It's so big.
Ryan: I mean, it's a VCR. Vcrs are naturally heavier pieces of machinery.
Laura: My God. But because she's not allowed anymore, it's just a decision of the father, essentially.
Ryan: You got to keep that son happy.
Laura: The son has to keep having sex because of reasons and they were just going to give the eldest daughter to him. But then they let him choose which, uh, one by having him, God, like, close his eyes and then just feel the boobs and butt to see which one at least had the best hand feel. At least he picked which of his sister.
Josh: I mean, maybe he was able, maybe given the option, meant that he got to pick the one who wanted to do it.
Laura: Stop.
Josh: I'm just really trying to rationalize this and make it okay. At least. I'm just trying to be pro incest here.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, we need someone like that on the panel.
Ryan: We just need someone. Here's the only saving grace. At least he only picked the older one. So it's not like it's pedophilic.
Laura: They're all old enough for.
Ryan: Yeah, you don't know. You just said in the synopsis that they were teenagers. I think they're teenagers, but maybe they were. Maybe they were just. She's on the cusp of turning 18 and all the rest of them are. All the rest of them are younger in Greece.
Laura: Oh, uh, great question.
Ryan: Let's find out.
Laura: Wow.
Josh: We need to do this more often for every show. What is.
Laura: I know.
Josh: Anytime we do a movie outside of the US.
Laura: What is typing in that? Take a guess.
Ryan: 13?
Laura: No.
Ryan: Oh, good.
Laura: It's a little higher.
Josh: 15. See? It's fine.
Ryan: Yeah, it's all right. It's Europe, I guess. Yeah, because it's 16.
Laura: And sin cannot be given by a person who is drunk or drugged or by someone else on your behalf. Good to know. Greek law.
Ryan: Nice. At least I know now.
Laura: Okay, where did we get to?
Laura: All right.
Laura: Yeah. He picks the eldest daughter.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: His older sister. And there is that moment where the mom is dolling her up, right. And she's got that bright. Was it, like, blue?
Ryan: Maybe they tart her up a little bit.
Laura: Yeah, tarted her up a bit.
Ryan: Tart her up.
Laura: And I'm wondering, as the mom's brushing her hair, does she just think to herself, hm. Did we go too far?
Ryan: No. Hold on. Doesn't she start crying at one point? What was she crying about? I'm trying to remember. I mean, maybe it was that, uh.
Laura: The kids are not supposed to see you cry. That is very important.
Ryan: Yes. No. Uh, maybe she's not having a good time with it. It'd be safe to say that maybe she's not having a good time with it. It does seem like a little bit of a nightmare.
Laura: Just a bit.
Laura: That maybe this experiment has gotten out of control a tiny bit to where you're having your kids have sex for reasons.
Ryan: Yes, reasons. Reasons.
Laura: Me? Oh, my.
Ryan: Um, you see an erection.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: And I'm curious if it's real. Not, uh, the erection. The erection seems real, but, uh, the sex act, I feel like it might be.
Laura: Oh, you think that they.
Josh: I think that the actors.
Laura: Unsimulated.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: I think the actors fucked on screen. I think they did.
Laura: It wouldn't surprise me. I did not find that in my research. But sometimes a lot of people don't ask those type of questions. Not like nine songs.
Josh: Cowards.
Ryan: Yeah. Or like, at least in Europe, they don't ask it because it's just like a given. It's just like, there. Uh, it's.
Laura: It's not.
Ryan: It's nothing special.
Laura: It's our puritan society.
Ryan: I don't want to say that, like, in Europe, incest is slightly more acceptable.
Laura: No, it's not incest sex on screen. I don't think incest is cool.
Josh: I mean, it's pretty cool.
Ryan: Who's the monster now?
Laura: Wow.
Ryan: Well, Josh was an only child, right? Uh, yeah.
Josh: I don't know.
Ryan: You don't know?
Josh: All my friends and siblings hate when I break out this whole line of rhetoric. Well, what if she was on the pill and he wore a condom? They're both over 18. They're sober. What's really wrong? And all I ever hear is it's gross. Not a good enough answer.
Laura: Yeah, your love is love argument doesn't really work too well.
Josh: I'm not condoning it. I'm just saying that I don't think that it's necessarily objectively wrong. Or at least I can't come up with reasons for it to be. Um. I can plenty subjectively. I can tell you how I feel about it yourself.
Laura: Tell.
Josh: I mean, I don't know. I'd love to hear them change my mind.
Ryan: I don't think it's right. But what I do think is, um, as deplorable as having children in ancestral relationship, because they're.
Josh: That's why I sat on the pill and wearing them.
Laura: That's how Joffrey came about. And that's a real big problem.
Ryan: Fucking eyes bugging out of their head and fucking buck teeth and shit. Like, looking like real freaks. That's the sort of thing.
Laura: Okay, guys, incest is not okay, all right? I'm just saying it's yucky.
Josh: Just because you don't like it doesn't mean nobody else is allowed to stop.
Laura: Okay, I did find a little bit of information because, uh. Stop it, um.
Ryan: Same flavor. Diet Pepsi. Feels like it's missing something from ordinary Pepsi.
Josh: I mean, if Juanitor already has taught me anything regular.
Ryan: Carry on, Laura.
Laura: Thank you so much. Um, some interviewers were asking Lanthimos about the incest, obviously, because it's a hot topic. Um, and he said, we didn't rationalize what we were doing. It wasn't psychological. It was physical. Bring your body into a situation, but leave everything else out. Don't think about it. Uh, what does it mean? Is it right or wrong? What would be the rational way to react? Forget that and just feel the other person's hand or the wall or the ball. That's how they tried to forget everything they knew as actors or as people, just by trying to be empty every day and to react to everything that was happening just in that moment. And at that point, the interviewer asked him. He's like, so, do you do all of the actors thinking for them? He goes, yes.
Josh: I mean, kind of his.
Laura: Yeah, yeah.
Ryan: He has to make sure that it's all going in the right. Um, call him moving props. He did.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: He's like. Or I think Stanley Kubrick also said, yeah, they're kind of like a donkey. Like, if you give them too much rope, they'll end up hanging themselves. God. Yeah. Here's the thing. They're all asking about the incest or whatever, but no one at any point addresses the fact that there's a cat with a hammer that walked into that kid's bedroom and fucking kneecapped him.
Laura: Very scary stuff. They did say that cats are the most dangerous thing, uh, on the other side of the wall.
Ryan: Cats with hammers.
Laura: Just like, picture that that knee is broke.
Ryan: Cats, fucking hammers.
Laura: I love that so much because, you know, the dad's like, jesus Christ. He's like, I can't punish her for whacking him in the knee with a hammer. But, uh, uh, you just got to go along with it.
Ryan: I do like the rationalization where it's like, no, she hit me with the hammer. And he's like, no, you're delirious from the pain. It was a cat with a hammer.
Laura: Why weren't you prepared, son, for the cat in the hammer?
Ryan: It was pretty great. It's pretty awesome.
Laura: Yeah. Um.
Ryan: Fucking terrifying. Yeah, absolutely terrifying.
Laura: Um.
Laura: Ah, yeah. Are we done talking about the, uh, incest?
Josh: Are we?
Ryan: I think so.
Laura: Yeah. It goes the same way as the first time where he has Christina. He has his routine. Very clinical.
Ryan: You see a lot more. That's the thing. You're seeing a full erection happening. And let's be serious for a second. It's really uncomfortable.
Laura: I once again watched this movie with my headphones on. And it wasn't like nine songs where it's just wet, wet sound. Ah, this was just wooden bed creaking. And I didn't like that either. Didn't like it.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: But when it's over, which I laughed a lot. Um, she has this whole thing that she says, and from what I understand, it's not a line from any movie. I think it's just like her gathering kind of words and vocabulary from movies, right. And just like, kind of just maybe starting to think for herself and, um, starting to come up with her own phrases and stuff. Not just the weird things that her parents come up with and the fake words for things, but she says a whole thing. But I just like that. She goes, do that again, bitch, and I'll rip your guts out. She says something about his clan ruining his clan, which I don't know what. That's not from anything, but it made me laugh.
Ryan: Yeah. Uh, your kind of understanding of their language, and I mean, not like the Greek language, but the language of which they've adopted certain words to mean different things. Like pussy is a light.
Laura: Um, just a big light.
Ryan: And a zombie is a small yellow flower to the part where he sees a couple of flowers and he's like, mom, I've seen a couple of zombies in the garden. Um.
Laura: Um.
Laura: Yeah, I don't know. Are we good? Can I move on from the incest?
Ryan: Yeah, I think so. I think we've covered it. We've covered it pretty well. I'm good.
Laura: We kind of come to the end of the film.
Ryan: Well, it comes full circle. There's this whole idea because it's called dog tooth for a reason.
Laura: Um.
Ryan: If they lose one of their dog teeth, one of their canines, then they're able to leave.
Laura: Doesn't matter which one, left or right.
Ryan: Yes, they're able to leave the compound. They're able to leave.
Laura: Well, no, if you lose the dog tooth. If you lose the dog tooth, you are. God damn it.
Josh: It's because you're saying the d word.
Laura: I know I said the d. If you lose your dog tooth, you're old enough to leave.
Laura: Ah.
Laura: And it's something about, like, you can leave once it grows back, and you can only leave by car.
Ryan: Right?
Laura: Something like that. And it's impossible.
Ryan: Very particular.
Laura: It's an impossible situation, obviously, because that's not real. You can't do that. And they're just like, waiting to be able to leave. And I really like that whole thing where you can only leave by car. It's like they see their toy, uh, plane, right? And they can't pass the threshold.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: To leave. And the dad drives the car, picks up the toy airplane and then backs the car back up to get it for them.
Ryan: I love that moment.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And how when they're. Oh, uh, that comes in a minute, but, yeah, it does come to a head when she decides she's getting rid of that tooth. Getting rid of that damn tooth.
Ryan: Knock her fucking tooth out of her mouth. Yeah.
Josh: I think that's the roughest part of the whole movie. That is the only part that really makes me squirm where I feel like I need to look away a little bit.
Ryan: I feel like anything to do with teeth in general or like fingernails. Little things getting cut off fingernails, like an ear falling off or some shit. Like the fly, for example. Like when he spits his teeth out of his fucking mouth.
Laura: Movie is really hot, though.
Ryan: Yeah, who wouldn't fuck Brundle Fly. Um, but, um. Yeah, it's kind of gross.
Laura: She also pops out a lateral incisor, uh, as well. She doesn't just get the one. Yeah, she gets a couple.
Ryan: She uses.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: She uses tool. No, just battering her fucking mouth with a gumbo.
Laura: Like a two pound weight. Oh, my God.
Ryan: We can check that. We've actually got it. We got weights behind the door.
Laura: Yeah. I think this smallest is a three pound. I think it's about a two pound weight, I'd say.
Ryan: All right, there you go. Well, we can try that out later. We'll get Tony YouTube content. Yeah, you can hold the camera and I'll start batting my fucking mouth with the two pound weight. See what happens.
Laura: Yeah, just see what happens. What I like about that moment, right, is that it's like she believes them enough that the tooth has to go, right in order to leave. But it's kind of like a weird thing because she knows that the tooth has to fall out, but she knocks it out instead.
Laura: Huh.
Laura: And then she leaves and hides in the car. So it's like she believes them enough to know that it has to go, but she still sneaks away. Because I'm like, you could have just been like, here it is. It fell out, but they would know it was fake. But she doesn't know that either. It's kind of a weird.
Ryan: But I think also with the parents, though, they came up with something that was relatively infallible. There was no point in them where they were thinking, oh, well, she'll just knock her teeth out and she'll be able to go, like, it's a scary proposition that they don't think they would ever undertake.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: He's got them to the point of believing that cats are fucking really dangerous. Like, tiny little kittens are, like, the most dangerous animals on the planet. So the idea of her, because she's exhibiting traits throughout the course of the movie, uh, as we're going through the course of the story, where she's exploring herself and she's exploring different things, and that consequently means that she's going to start exploring outside of the house as well. So it does come to a head. A very satisfying ending. I would.
Laura: Oh, yeah. So I love it. I love the ending of this movie. I love an ambiguous, uh, ending.
Ryan: Yes. We won't spoil it because you should watch it yourself.
Laura: The youngest daughter, Mary Sony, was not a professional actor. I think Yorgos has a thing for non actors. Uh, she was in a punk band called Mary and the Boy. But she passed away in 2017, a, um, month before her 30th birthday, because she had a pulmonary edema.
Ryan: Holy shit.
Laura: Wow.
Laura: Yes.
Laura: Fuck.
Laura: That is excessive fluid accumulation in the tissue or airspaces of the lungs, which can lead to respiratory failure.
Ryan: All right.
Laura: Sucks.
Ryan: Thank you, scientist.
Laura: Thank you. The Internet. Um, and they didn't know about this at the time, but in 1970, there was, um, a Mexican film called Castle of Purity made by Arturo Ripstein. And it's similar themes where it was inspired by a story in the newspapers in the 50s about a man who isolated his family and didn't allow them to leave. And he didn't know about it at the time, but people were saying, like, oh, you stole it from this guy. And he goes, I didn't even know about it. But that's happened. That happens.
Josh: Yeah.
Ryan: This isn't the first film of a fucked up family, though, because there's also, like, visitor Q is also another movie that has a fucked up family in it. And that came out in 2008. I think it was earlier than this one. So they're not the same. But you can draw parallels to quite a number of different films.
Laura: Um, the budget of this film was €250,000.
Laura: Wow.
Josh: That's less than I thought. It's a lot less than I thought.
Laura: It was helped.
Josh: I mean, I knew it wasn't super high budget, but. Shit.
Laura: Yeah. The production was helped by volunteers, for the most part, and mostly monetarily supported by the Greek Film center.
Josh: Makes sense. How do you rope volunteers into that. No, don't read the script. Yeah, we'll have pizza for you.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, this won uncertain regard at Con in 2009 and nominated for best foreign film at the Academy Awards and the best. Or, uh, the British Independent Film Awards.
Josh: I was working for our local art house theater when this came out, and I remember that the programming director and I, we thought it was so fucking funny that that movie got nominated for best foreign film. We're like, oh, my God, there's so many normal people that are going to see this now, and they're going to feel horrible. Their lives are going to be ruined.
Laura: I think it's a story of hope and freedom myself.
Josh: Right.
Laura: I love that.
Josh: Is not how my grandmother would feel if she watched this movie.
Ryan: Yeah. No.
Laura: Maybe my mom's doing a good job in broadening her film horizons with some of the films that we do, so maybe I'll see what she thinks. All right. Uh, anyone else have anything they want to add before we go into our ratings?
Ryan: Not me.
Laura: Not you. You, sir. Ryan? No. Well, all right, guest, why don't you go first? Give us your visibility and context. Rating.
Josh: Yeah, certainly. Visibility. Uh, what is. It's five point scale. Yes. Uh, five. I mean, you see his erection. There's no, uh, fucking eyes wide shut, digital shadow, people being put in front of that. It's there. I mean, it's open. Um, and I mean, context wise as well. It fits very well, I'd say. I think it is extremely successful at what it's trying to do.
Laura: That is true. That is true.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Do you want to go for the. Why don't you just tell us?
Josh: Okay. I think overall, I rated the film a four and a half.
Laura: Mhm.
Josh: Um, I'll stick with that. It probably is closer to a four. Uh, it just happens to hit all the right notes for me as far as what I like to. It stroked my sensibilities. Uh, so I personally love it. Maybe a little more than it deserves. But I am a very big fan of this film.
Laura: Do you want to go, Ryan? Are you comfortable? Are you ready?
Ryan: I think I'm ready.
Laura: Wonderful.
Ryan: I, um, don't know if the visibility is as good as a five, though. I maybe say it's closer to a three because it's awfully brief. Now, it's better than some films that we've done where some people would argue that you don't see anything at all.
Laura: Yeah, we don't, um, need to bring those up.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: But I would say that, um, visibility is good for, like, a three. And I do like, contextually that, yeah, well, they're going to have sex. That makes sense. They're going to be naked. Um, and you see his full on raging boner. As for the father and his porky pigging and stuff, obviously doesn't need to be there, but it is very much appreciated that it is there. Um, and as for my rating on the film in general, I did give it a four. This was my first viewing. It maybe suffers a little bit from the Ryan's first time viewing, um, bias that I have. Um, so I'd probably enjoy it on a second viewing because I didn't find it as funny as some of you guys then. Now that we're talking about it now, it definitely is funny. So, yeah, there is that. But I do think, yeah, there was a bit of a hump in terms of getting over the tone and really kind of getting into the meat and the bones of it a little bit. So I gave it a four because I think it's incredibly enjoyable and I like its style and I like what it's doing and it's incredibly fucked up. And that's something I do enjoy regularly.
Laura: Um, for my visibility and context, I kind of went back and forth. There was more on the second viewing than I remember. Obviously, I didn't know there was nudity in it when I first watched it. I was just wanting to watch it because I'd never seen it. And I thought, oh, I'll freaking watch this movie. I think now I'm going to give it a four just because the frequency of it and because of the kind of the natural way in which it's depicted, um, based on the setting and the context. The dad, yeah, the first time the dad, uh, takes his pants off, it was just too shadowy. But then you do see it later. That was really surprising. And I didn't love it, um, didn't love the son's penis either. Anyway. Four. I'll give it a four. It was gross. Um, the film, I also gave a four. I really like this film. And yeah, you're right, Ryan, same thing. First viewing, I didn't realize it was funny. There was things that made me very uncomfortable, still make me uncomfortable, but now I can see the humor in it because there does have to be that balance. And for people like us sitting in this room who do have quite a dark sense of humor about us, it works for weirdos like us who can appreciate a dark humor and having things be so incredibly fucked up that you have to laugh. And there's a lot of weird light. Maybe not light, but funny things in this movie that I really enjoy. So, yeah, four. Uh, I would probably watch this again, m because you've done this for uncomfortable brunch, right? Uh, yeah, I didn't get to see that, which is a shame, because that would have been really funny trying to remember.
Josh: I don't know if we did it at Wills or if we did it at Enzian. I think we did it at Enzian when we first started there. Uh, this is how I'm starting to have trouble remembering sometimes.
Laura: Yeah. I don't remember the episodes we've done on this podcast, either.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Uh, but, yeah, I believe that we did it at Enzian, and, uh, yes, because I remember it was one of those situations where 75% of the audience hadn't seen it before, but, like, 100% had heard of it. You know what I mean? Uh, so being able to hear the. That's really what that's all about. I really, really enjoyed that.
Laura: It's also funny, which Ryan hasn't seen it quite yet, but love lies bleeding that Josh and I went and saw last night, and we started the laughter, I think, in that theater from the beginning, nobody knew. Nobody knew to laugh, and then they all kind of got into it later on, which is appreciated. But, yeah, this is funny. Funny movie.
Laura: Great.
Laura: Yay. Good dog tooth. So happy. So happy you guys could talk about it. Um, are we good?
Ryan: Yeah, I think so.
Laura: Anything else?
Ryan: Yeah, I mean, I don't have anything else to say. There is the blindfold game. I thought that was really scary because you don't want to be blindfolded near a swimming pool. It's crazy.
Laura: Uh.
Laura: Yeah, I still like the kids barking at the gate, looking for the sister at the very end of the movie, just barking to keep the dad safe from the cats. The brother, uh, throwing bits of cake over the fence for the brother that doesn't exist.
Ryan: That was the sister sending the cake over the fence, and then the other.
Laura: Brother would throw rocks over the. Well, actually, that comes to my end line, which is coming to you from the other side of the fence.
Ryan: Yes, I've been Laura, you go, oh, Ryan, I'm Josh.
Laura: Yay. We did it. Um, enjoy watching this movie. Watch it with your family, everybody.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: Definitely watch a family affair.
Laura: It absolutely is.
Josh: Definitely watch it with my dad.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Sure. If my mom was around, I'd watch it with her.
Ryan: Yeah, you wouldn't watch it with your.
Josh: Dad, would you watch it with your brother?
Laura: Ah, gross.
Laura: As we do.
Ryan: Hold on 2 seconds.