Dogville (2003)

As I've said the other day, my resolution for 2019 is to watch all those movies I've been meaning to watch since always but kept putting off for a reason or another. Dogville I put off because of the length and because, being honest, you have to be in the right mood to handle Lars von Trier. 

The film focuses on Grace Margaret Mulligan (Nicole Kidman), a beautiful young woman on the run from the mob who seeks refuge in Dogville, a small mountain town with a tight community of people who look after each other. The residents are reluctant at first, but, persuaded by the town’s philosopher, Tom Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany), they agree to hide her. In return, Grace agrees to work for them but nothing comes without a price and soon the people of Dogville begin to abuse her.

It’s a very simple story that appears calm, harmless, almost boring at the beginning, but, little by little, if you have the patience to stick around, the plot begins to develop and it slowly turns into a cruel, often unbearable story —I should have seen it coming as to shock the audience is typical of von Trier but the dramatic turn the story took really caught me by surprise— with a brilliant, astonishing twist at the end that will take your breath away.

It is a story rich with themes of arrogance, indifference, hypocrisy, greed, desire, mistrust, punishment, death and love. It is a story about power, corruption and corruptibility —power corrupts and the more the power the greater the corruption, is the film’s statement—; it is about human nature and morality, a portrait of America, but also of the entire world. In other words, Dogville contains misanthropy towards all humans.

The characters aren’t particularly three-dimensional people and don’t have much personality as they all are symbols that represent the dark side of humanity, but the time von Trier takes to set them up allows them to be entirely credible. The town of Dogville can also be considered a character as it is its small area that really helps to convey the hostility between the human characters.

The cast does a wonderful job —Nicole Kidman is magnificent as Grace; she brings so much vulnerability and fragility to her young, naïve character. Great support is provided by the supporting cast, Paul Bettany and Patricia Clarkson delivering the most powerful performances of the bunch. John Hurt does a marvellous job narrating as the narration is amusing and very moving.

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What stuck with me the most about Dogville is the style. The film is void of any visual constituents of a film; it is indeed set on a theatre stage with almost no props. There are no buildings, no plants, no animals, only drawings on the floor. It has no backgrounds —it’s black or white depending on the time of the day. The characters open and close invisible doors, they talk about non-existent objects. This is what truly made Dogville work for me. The very minimalistic stage magnifies the town’s residents’ interactions with Grace, they make their emotions more palpable as it allows the camera to linger on the actors’ faces without any distraction whatsoever. It’s the style that allowed me to fully immerse into the story, to experience everything event as if I was part of the story.

Ultimately, Dogville is a very long film —a nearly three hours—, and it’s often difficult to watch but it’s worth the effort/time as it is one of the most brilliant and unique films I’ve seen. 


12 comments :

  1. Lars Von Trier è uno di quei nomi che di solito o si amano o si odiano. Io cerco di mettermi nel mezzo… nella sua filmografia ci sono opere provocatorie e troppo fini a se stesse, assolutamente dimenticabili, ma anche capolavori assoluti da vedere e rivedere. Questo, insieme a "Melancholia" è, per me, un grandissimo film.

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    1. Anche io sono nel mezzo. Alcuni proprio non hanno fatto per me; altri, come questo e Nymphomaniac, li ho molto apprezzati.

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  2. Je trouve cela pas mal du tout…
    Mais pas si bien que le génial DANCER IN THE DARK, porté par la grande Björk...

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  3. I think it's one of Lars von Trier's great films as I was fortunate to see this in the theaters as it really provoked the ideas of what to do in getting someone to help you only to make that person your personal slave. It's a shame that von Trier is unlikely going to make Wasington which was supposed to be the third film of this trilogy mainly because the sequel Manderlay bombed in the worldwide box office.

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    1. I still have to see many of his films but I doubt any of them will top this. It's a masterpiece! I envy you so much for seeing it in the theaters.

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  4. I'm not a fan of Lars von Trier, but I really liked the film. The performances were great (I love Paul Bettany and Nicole Kidman is always great), and the idea of the theater sets was very cool, it worked for this movie. Great review!

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  5. Wow 5 stars! Great review, this is how I wish I would've viewed Dogville. I tried but it didn't work for me.

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    1. I'm sorry it didn't work for you. But I guess that's how it goes with this guy, you either like him or hate him.

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  6. This is a great review as I heard about it but didn’t know much so your review makes me want to see it.

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    1. I'm not sure how you'd feel about this, but I'd say it's worth watching.

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