Now on DVD: Dog Tooth

Dogtooth is, superficially at least, the oddest film of the last few years. The closest point of comparison is probably to Ian Banks' cult eighties novel The Wasp Factory. In that, a father and his two sons lead, somewhere in rural Scotland, an extraordinarily unconventional life which involves everything from compulsive table leg measuring to bouts of extreme animal cruelty. One of Dogtooth's most memorable scenes also involves a sudden, shocking scene of animal cruelty, but the real similarity lies in both piece’s depictions of families creating their own private codes of conduct and, in Dogtooth, even language.

Again, the location here is remote. We don't know where exactly, but we can presume it's somewhere in rural Greece. The family is dominated by a crazed patriarch who releases fish in the swimming pool and awards his children stickers for behaviour he deems good – behaviour that is, for the most part, nondescript random acts of living. Behind closed doors the kids have all kinds of sex with each other and, in the evenings, the family gather to watch home movies in which nothing particularly happens.

All of this is told in a disquieting still, detached style. The camera rarely moves and sometimes the edit also lingers. The lighting is usually rather bright. However rarely do we feel like voyeurs. The action is so alien and although we see physical, sexual intimacy, rarely do we see any emotional rawness. The camera is rarely at anything other than a mid-shot; this is a close-up-free zone.

Giorgos Lanththimos must be commended for his consistency and endeavour to see his concept play out. But despite the cold humour and the commitment to the increasingly bizarre, there's neither very much soul or very much insight on display here. A family that creates its own language and rich inner world, albeit a violent and incestuous one, is a concept begging for endless excavation, but this film is too interested in confining itself to the grotesque. It's provocative grotesque, sure, which does ask questions. But you've got to have some meat, or chewy sinew, on those bloody bones to take it a little further.