^ I canceled Yorgos out of my life (lol) almost 15 years ago when Dogtooth scared the bejesus out of me. I always plan to see his new films but I also know that sooner or later I'll chicken out and carry on.
No way— I’d never think you’d be flinching from anything…
The films that I recalled having flinched, and feeling a tad numb and sad towards by the end were
Salo and
The Passion of the Christ.
My grandmother lived through the Japanese occupation of Shanghai when she was young— and her recount of the horror she experienced and witnessed was bone chilling. Then my friend’s grandmother recounted stories of the Japanese occupation of Korea, and the stories just doubled down on the horror my grandmother lived through. These women survived Hell. Have you watched
Irreversible yet?
Anyway,
Dogtooth was silly. He’s one of the most prolific filmmakers with such a specific tone and mood that you either go along with, or you’re out immediately because it’s kind of… silly. And this constance of his that's a silliness— maybe a perversity... even when it’s meant to be disturbing, comes from a fairy tale absurdity: The scene of the daughter crawling because she’s paralyzed from the leg down just to be with the weirdo antagonist in
The Killing of a Sacred Deer; the scene of the woman laying on the ground paralyzed, screaming in pain, after having jumped off the 3rd floor window but doesn’t die in
The Lobster; Olivia’s Queen Victoria forcing the page to look at her, then screaming at a child for looking at her in
The Favourite… All so disturbing, psychotic and abusive— but so silly as well. His visual tones are so absurd, demented and knowingly silly. And still grounded in a reality that’s a tad… chilling.