We love our social experiments. Did reality TV not come to fruition through social experiments like Big Brother and Survivor? But of course, these are less social experiments than the refuge of those desperate for any attention they can receive. Anyone who has read the frivolous Superfreakonomics knows that social experiments rarely work, with human awareness interfering. But our unique ability to use imagination can lead to even greater truths. And this is where the Greek film Dogtooth comes in.

Dogtooth follows the isolated household of an unnamed family. The father works a regular day job, the mother stays at home to mind her three adult children. But the children (Brother, Younger Sister, and Older Sister) have never stepped foot outside of their garden. Indeed, Father conspires to keep them completely isolated from society, with all media forbidden except a record player and a single record (by Dean Martin, although Father claims it’s just his grandfather). The children are kept inside the property’s perimeter through fierce tales of outside evils, and are occupied though a series of silly games. Words relating to the outside are reinterpreted (the mother diverts a question about a slang word for a part of the female anatomy by claiming it’s a flower), and the only external contact is a security guard paid to sexually satisfy Brother to ease his urges. But when the security guard’s desires turn to the sisters, Father’s plan comes apart.

Dogtooth walks the fine line between the “shock cinema” of the last decade, but actually makes a bold statement about the fundamentals of humanity. Sure, the film has violence, mental and physical abuse, and disturbing sex (pretty much incest of every configuration possible), but it all is aimed towards a specific point. Many have seen references not only to the crime committed by Austria’s Josef Fritzl but also to Greece’s detrimental financial situation and impending social implosion. But the film goes deeper than that.

There is something warming about a film that sees human curiosity as both healthy and inherent. For those that think we are blank slates filled with knowledge and the ability to corrupt, the film portrays the children already at the edge of rebellion. They question everything their parents tell them to do, accepting the warped interpretation but with doubt. One of the sisters even discovers that hidden telephone, but fails to understand what it is. Hormones explode and unhealthy trysts occur outside of (perverse) parental observation. Older Sister gets some video tapes smuggled in and can’t help but memorise every line of Jaws, Rocky, re-enacting each moment. One of the film’s most bizarre and brilliant moments sees the children devise a live performance of the Flashdance boogie.

Another director who likes to show us the underbelly of society is Michael Haneke. Only Haneke thinks that the underbelly is rancid, full of bile and rot, and makes films like Cache and Funny Games, which shove our face in it. His films are cold, clinical, intellectual but emotionally frigid. Dogtooth does the opposite. While at times the deadpan performances contribute to the sterility of the film’s cinematography, it is far more humane than Haneke. Sexual and general curiosity are what lead to freedom, not downfall. And in one scene Brother murders a kitten who wanders into the garden, terrifying the siblings who have never encountered a feline. But rather than play for laughs, the lingering on the poor creatures mangled corpse hints at the repressive consequences of Father’s plan.

So with Dogtooth we have a film that goes out of its way to break taboos, but never for the sake of doing so. Instead, it samples humanity through a twisted portrayal of a social experiment of sorts, and instead of allowing us to wallow in our superficial voyeurism it instead acts as an ode to the brilliant and liberating essence of human curiosity and imagination.