This is an earlier film by the same Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos who brought us The Lobster and The Favourite. When he made this, he hadn’t yet become famous so this was made with unknown actors and a limited budget. In fact, it takes place almost entirely within the confines of a family’s house. Yet it doesn’t disappoint with regards to its weirdness quotient while being somewhat easier to understand in terms of theme.

A middle-aged couple raise three children, all on the cusp of adulthood, inside a large compound. Though outwardly normal, it is evident to the viewer that something weird is going on. The children are neither allowed out of the compound nor to communicate with the outside world. The couple teach the children themselves and deliberately mislead them, giving the wrong definitions for words and saying that they may be killed by cats if they venture outside themselves. The only other person the children interact with is Christina, a female security guard at the factory where the father works. He regularly brings Christina to the house, taking care to blindfold her first so she doesn’t know where it is, in order to have sex with his son. Despite the couple’s best efforts however, the eldest daughter longs for escape from this enclosed world and goes to extraordinary lengths to achieve it.

As with The Lobster, this film is both profoundly disturbing and mystifying. It would be easier to put into context if the couple raised the children in this manner for some conventionally selfish reason such as to take advantage of them sexually but they don’t. From what we can tell as for example when the father discovers that Christina has secretly given the eldest daughter VHS tapes of movies, they do it out of a sincere belief that this is the best and safest way in which to bring up their children. This of course only makes the film only more horrifying as we see them enforcing discipline by savagely beating the children when they misbehave and reward them with stickers when they do well. Some critics have suggested that this film represents homeschooling taken to an extreme, when parents fundamentally disagree with the rest of society what kind of education children should have. That sounds about right to me though characteristically for the director, he pushes the concept to such a ridiculous extent that it threatens to overwhelm his original point.

Regardless of what it all actually means, the torture that the parents subject the three of them to is dismaying in the extreme, even if most of them are psychological in nature. For example, in order to fend off the threat of cats, the are taught to go on all fours and to bark like dogs. What makes it even more horrifying is that the mother joins in enthusiastically in order to sell the lie. Naturally the children pick up on this logic and extend those to their own lies such when a sister claims the brother was hurt by a cat wielding a hammer after a fight between the two. There are more subtle forms of conditioning and control as well. For example, note how none of the characters with the exception of the visiting security guard Christina seem to have names. This explains the eldest daughter’s fascination with common male name Bruce when she comes across it in the contraband VHS videos.

One problem is that the film may come across as being a crassly provocative work that wants only to shock and offend the viewer. It helps that it’s relatively short and avoids explicit torture. Still it’s main point is rather straightforward and it lacks the lush sophistication of the director’s later works. This one feels almost experimental in how it’s pared down to just the essentials. You should watch it but it’s not for the faint of heart.