reviews for controversial Dogville
05-23-03, 09:40 AM
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reviews for controversial Dogville
i know there's been some discussion over lars von trier's cannes entry dogville in the cannes thread but i thought i'd post some reviews that have been coming in recently. personally, i can't wait to see this film, it sounds extremely interesting. and yes, these are from AICN, but since they aren't rumors, they were written by 2 people who have seen the film over in europe, i feel they're relevant...
BTW, lions gate just picked up the north american distribution rights.
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=15294
BTW, lions gate just picked up the north american distribution rights.
http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=15294
Just seen Lars Von Triers latest 'Dogville' starring Nicole Kidman which has opened here to packed auditoriums in Brussels the day after its Cannes premiere.
I've only seen Von Triers breakthrough art house hit 'Breaking the Waves' (with Emily Watson) which to this day I still can't decide whether I like or not (moving spiritual enlightenment or just plain old nasty misogyny?) but have followed his subsequent releases (and the surrounding controversies) with interest and have been amused with his audience and critic-baiting tactics and outspoken views.
I didn't know much about Dogville apart from the fact it starred Kidman and was a one-set piece with houses, etc denoted by being drawn on the stage in chalk. This film is basically a filmed stage play with a hand held camera and a cast (including Paul Bettany, Lauren Bcall, Ben Gazzara, Chloe Sevigny) of about 20 and seems to be set in a tiny, remote mountain village of the title in the US in the 20s or 30s. Kidman plays a woman on the run from gangsters who ends up hiding in the village. The villagers are initially suspicious, but are convinced by their church leader who sees Kidman's presence as a perfect symbol to teach the villagers about the values of tolerance and open-mindedness then accepting and happy to have her. But when the police turn up with to stick up posters offering rewards for any information about her things start to turn dark...
Dogville is a brilliant socio-political allegory for the times we live in and can be seen as a metaphor for the uneasy relationship between big nations (read US) and smaller nations (too many options here but Iraq is surely what Von Triers has in mind when he wrote that the devastating ending). If that sounds a big turn off then it isn't if you like to use your brain once in a while and have an opinion. Yes the theatricality of the film and hand held camera and slow pace of the 3 hour film (structured as a prologue and 9 chapters) can mean it takes a while to get into this (there were several walk outs in the first hour). But if you stick to it you will be rewarded with a harsh, clever, really well thought out, directed and superbly acted parable which ends in a shockingly uncompromising (yet logical) manner that'll turn a lot of people off as well as delight (in a 'oh-my-god I can't believe this is happening' way) others. Best seen with a bunch of people who like thoughful movies since there are so many ways to interpret this, I can guarantee it will provoke much debate. Dogville will surely win the Grand Prix at Cannes and I bet Kidman walks away with Best Actress - this is her 4th superb performance in a row (after Moulin Rouge, The Others and The Hours) and the woman can do now wrong in my book.
But this will probably go down like a lead balloon in the US in the current post-Iraq climate although I'm sure Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine) will love it...
I saw this a few days after seeing 'The Matrix Reloaded' and it restored my faith in cinema. I'd say Dogville is already the best (and most relevant) film of 2003.
By the way, Matrix Reloaded was shockingly boring and had such such inane dialogue - Morpheus please shut the f*** up. The action was OK but the big chase in Terminator 2 was better than the freeway chase here and that rave scene was just embarrasing - if only we'd been able to see all of those Zion twats massacred by the sentinels then that'd have been the film's saving grace. That's the consensus of everyone I know who has seen it (and all big Matrix fans).
Cheers
Arvo
---------------------------------------------------------
I haven't had a chance to contribute anything since reviewing "Talk to Her" last year. But in case you want any reviews of "Dogville" (it opened in my hometown today), here's my modest effort.
Let me provide a Prologue to this review (there is one in the movie). I don't know if "Dancer in the Dark" got better in the last half (I hope it did). I'll never know; I walked out at intermission. There is only so much channelling of Lillian Gish by Icelandic rock pixies I can take. So I didn't go into "Dogville" with any particular enthusiasm, thinking it all hype and no substance.
Now, of course, I'm all keyed-up without actually knowing what I really think of the movie. That - by definition - is already what a good movie should do. A good movie (I've been taught) should also be essentially visual, dialogue kept to a minimum. "Dogville" doesn't respect that (or any other) rules. But it involves you emotionally more than any movie I've seen since, well, "Talk to Her".
Prior to writing this, I read through Todd McCarthy's bizarre review in "Variety". I've always adored Todd McCarthy, but his contention that "Dogville" is a virulent attack on American values is ridiculous. As Dogville's female protagonist is on the run from gangsters, Von Triers has made a stab at historical accuracy (his one and only) by setting the story in gangster-ridden Depression-era America (the current crop of British directors - who would have us believe London is rife with Mafiosi - would have situated the story in today's East End -). If this is McCarthy's idea of anti-Americanism, then his patriotic zeal has gone right off the deep-end. I think foreign directors should have the right to set their stories in the U.S. if they want to, plenty of American directors have set their own movies in foreign countries and described the natives in less than flattering terms. It's known as "freedom of speech" - not to mention artistic license. Give me a break. If Von Triers' movie takes place in an "America of the mind", it is probably because the influences on this movie are mainly American: Faulkner, Wilder, Steinbeck and Agee.
I won't go into detail about the form of the movie. Yes, it is very experimental, resembling filmed theatre more than a "movie". There are allusions to the theatre of the absurd, the theatre of cruelty, Samuel Beckett (well, an exceedingly long-winded Samuel Beckett). Von Triers' Rocky-Mountain-Village-of-Cinematic-Memory and the predicament of his tortured heroine evoke Faulkner's "Sanctuary" and James Hadley Chase's "No Orchids for Miss Blandish", among others.
Von Triers' first great achievement lies in the extraordinary acting of his ensemble. Worthy of special mention (and Oscars) are the surprisingly (to me at any rate) sublime Nicole Kidman, the magnificent Patricia Clarkson, Ben Gazzara and John Hurt (if narrators can be nominated).
But his second (and greatest) achievement lies in presenting his audience with a film set so stylized that it is alienating and, little by little, drawing the audience into the characters' suffering so intensely that after a while you can "see" that invisible mountain, that invisible dog, that invisible mine shaft, that invisible orchard.
Like the blind character played by Ben Gazzara (who feigns sight so well, you begin to doubt he is blind), Von Triers seduces his audience into visualizing his hard-hearted little Rocky Mountain town with great affect and with a absurdist humor. His Candide-like heroine would like to believe all is for the best in this best of all possible "Dogvilles", but she (and Von Triers) are forced, regretfully, to terminate that ideal.
Also worth noting is a scene of Kidman and a truck-driver in the back of his pick-up. It is the most aesthetically beautiful scene filmed by anyone whose name is not Jean Renoir. That the scene is horrifying (in content) makes it all the more stunning.
A very disturbing and fascinating film. Maybe even a great one. The setting may be the Rocky Mountains but the themes are universal.
Yours,
The Mississippi Mermaid
I've only seen Von Triers breakthrough art house hit 'Breaking the Waves' (with Emily Watson) which to this day I still can't decide whether I like or not (moving spiritual enlightenment or just plain old nasty misogyny?) but have followed his subsequent releases (and the surrounding controversies) with interest and have been amused with his audience and critic-baiting tactics and outspoken views.
I didn't know much about Dogville apart from the fact it starred Kidman and was a one-set piece with houses, etc denoted by being drawn on the stage in chalk. This film is basically a filmed stage play with a hand held camera and a cast (including Paul Bettany, Lauren Bcall, Ben Gazzara, Chloe Sevigny) of about 20 and seems to be set in a tiny, remote mountain village of the title in the US in the 20s or 30s. Kidman plays a woman on the run from gangsters who ends up hiding in the village. The villagers are initially suspicious, but are convinced by their church leader who sees Kidman's presence as a perfect symbol to teach the villagers about the values of tolerance and open-mindedness then accepting and happy to have her. But when the police turn up with to stick up posters offering rewards for any information about her things start to turn dark...
Dogville is a brilliant socio-political allegory for the times we live in and can be seen as a metaphor for the uneasy relationship between big nations (read US) and smaller nations (too many options here but Iraq is surely what Von Triers has in mind when he wrote that the devastating ending). If that sounds a big turn off then it isn't if you like to use your brain once in a while and have an opinion. Yes the theatricality of the film and hand held camera and slow pace of the 3 hour film (structured as a prologue and 9 chapters) can mean it takes a while to get into this (there were several walk outs in the first hour). But if you stick to it you will be rewarded with a harsh, clever, really well thought out, directed and superbly acted parable which ends in a shockingly uncompromising (yet logical) manner that'll turn a lot of people off as well as delight (in a 'oh-my-god I can't believe this is happening' way) others. Best seen with a bunch of people who like thoughful movies since there are so many ways to interpret this, I can guarantee it will provoke much debate. Dogville will surely win the Grand Prix at Cannes and I bet Kidman walks away with Best Actress - this is her 4th superb performance in a row (after Moulin Rouge, The Others and The Hours) and the woman can do now wrong in my book.
But this will probably go down like a lead balloon in the US in the current post-Iraq climate although I'm sure Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine) will love it...
I saw this a few days after seeing 'The Matrix Reloaded' and it restored my faith in cinema. I'd say Dogville is already the best (and most relevant) film of 2003.
By the way, Matrix Reloaded was shockingly boring and had such such inane dialogue - Morpheus please shut the f*** up. The action was OK but the big chase in Terminator 2 was better than the freeway chase here and that rave scene was just embarrasing - if only we'd been able to see all of those Zion twats massacred by the sentinels then that'd have been the film's saving grace. That's the consensus of everyone I know who has seen it (and all big Matrix fans).
Cheers
Arvo
---------------------------------------------------------
I haven't had a chance to contribute anything since reviewing "Talk to Her" last year. But in case you want any reviews of "Dogville" (it opened in my hometown today), here's my modest effort.
Let me provide a Prologue to this review (there is one in the movie). I don't know if "Dancer in the Dark" got better in the last half (I hope it did). I'll never know; I walked out at intermission. There is only so much channelling of Lillian Gish by Icelandic rock pixies I can take. So I didn't go into "Dogville" with any particular enthusiasm, thinking it all hype and no substance.
Now, of course, I'm all keyed-up without actually knowing what I really think of the movie. That - by definition - is already what a good movie should do. A good movie (I've been taught) should also be essentially visual, dialogue kept to a minimum. "Dogville" doesn't respect that (or any other) rules. But it involves you emotionally more than any movie I've seen since, well, "Talk to Her".
Prior to writing this, I read through Todd McCarthy's bizarre review in "Variety". I've always adored Todd McCarthy, but his contention that "Dogville" is a virulent attack on American values is ridiculous. As Dogville's female protagonist is on the run from gangsters, Von Triers has made a stab at historical accuracy (his one and only) by setting the story in gangster-ridden Depression-era America (the current crop of British directors - who would have us believe London is rife with Mafiosi - would have situated the story in today's East End -). If this is McCarthy's idea of anti-Americanism, then his patriotic zeal has gone right off the deep-end. I think foreign directors should have the right to set their stories in the U.S. if they want to, plenty of American directors have set their own movies in foreign countries and described the natives in less than flattering terms. It's known as "freedom of speech" - not to mention artistic license. Give me a break. If Von Triers' movie takes place in an "America of the mind", it is probably because the influences on this movie are mainly American: Faulkner, Wilder, Steinbeck and Agee.
I won't go into detail about the form of the movie. Yes, it is very experimental, resembling filmed theatre more than a "movie". There are allusions to the theatre of the absurd, the theatre of cruelty, Samuel Beckett (well, an exceedingly long-winded Samuel Beckett). Von Triers' Rocky-Mountain-Village-of-Cinematic-Memory and the predicament of his tortured heroine evoke Faulkner's "Sanctuary" and James Hadley Chase's "No Orchids for Miss Blandish", among others.
Von Triers' first great achievement lies in the extraordinary acting of his ensemble. Worthy of special mention (and Oscars) are the surprisingly (to me at any rate) sublime Nicole Kidman, the magnificent Patricia Clarkson, Ben Gazzara and John Hurt (if narrators can be nominated).
But his second (and greatest) achievement lies in presenting his audience with a film set so stylized that it is alienating and, little by little, drawing the audience into the characters' suffering so intensely that after a while you can "see" that invisible mountain, that invisible dog, that invisible mine shaft, that invisible orchard.
Like the blind character played by Ben Gazzara (who feigns sight so well, you begin to doubt he is blind), Von Triers seduces his audience into visualizing his hard-hearted little Rocky Mountain town with great affect and with a absurdist humor. His Candide-like heroine would like to believe all is for the best in this best of all possible "Dogvilles", but she (and Von Triers) are forced, regretfully, to terminate that ideal.
Also worth noting is a scene of Kidman and a truck-driver in the back of his pick-up. It is the most aesthetically beautiful scene filmed by anyone whose name is not Jean Renoir. That the scene is horrifying (in content) makes it all the more stunning.
A very disturbing and fascinating film. Maybe even a great one. The setting may be the Rocky Mountains but the themes are universal.
Yours,
The Mississippi Mermaid
05-23-03, 04:27 PM
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Can anyone link or post Todd McCarthy's review from Variety?
Edit: OK I got it. From www.variety.com:
After critiquing the death penalty in "Dancer in the Dark," Lars von Trier dispenses it in "Dogville," an artistically experimental, ideologically apocalyptic blast at American values that is as obvious in intent as it is murky in aesthetic achievement. Danish auteur has a lot of issues he's working out -- about the U.S., power, arrogance, grace, mercy, forgiveness, revenge, truth and passing judgment, just for starters -- and the way he chews them up and spits them out is, as always, deliberately designed to provoke. Shot with a top cast on a large stage bare but for a few props, hints of sets and a town plan painted on the floor, story of how a female on the run is treated by a small Rocky Mountain community during the Depression is far too indigestible for a public beyond the director's usual audience, despite the toplined performance of Nicole Kidman. Reactions even on the specialized circuit will be all over the map, with best response assured from the Blame America First crowd.
Shown in a three-hour version in Cannes, pic will reportedly be available for theatrical runs in a roughly 140-minute cut.
Sensitive to criticism as ever, von Trier in the film's press book admits that he was inspired to write "Dogville" by American journalists' criticism of his audacity in making the U.S.-set "Dancer in the Dark" without ever having visited the country. If that's the case, to call this new film an over-reaction to a slight reps an understatement of the first order, as there is no escaping the fact that the entire point of "Dogville" is that von Trier has judged America, found it wanting and therefore deserving of immediate annihilation. This is, in short, his "J'accuse!" directed toward an entire nation.
From someone who presented a wholly inauthentic account of the American judicial system in his last film in the interest of attacking it, his new Old Testament view of the world would seem to represent quite a contradiction. But then this is the director who created the Dogme 95 rules of filmmaking only to break them, so consistency is not to be expected, nor is political enlightenment from a man who, again in the press book, maintains that, "I don't see them (Americans) as less evil than the bandit states" they have recently fought.
So if one is to take up von Trier's overt invitation to respond to his film politically, reactions will be intense and based entirely upon one's prior disposition, as nothing in the film is designed to persuade or change anyone's mind. If the director wants more outraged reactions from Americans about his ignorance of their country, he'll certainly be able to fill many clippings books with them this time out.
On the artistic side, however, matters are more complex. In a style inspired directly by the television version of the Royal Shakespeare Co.'s '70s production of "Nicholas Nickleby," but also reminiscent in some ways of American live TV dramas of the '50s, von Trier has stripped his cinema down to bare essentials: actors, text, light, costumes and only token props. Ever since he launched "The Kingdom" a decade ago, von Trier has tried different means to minimize his films' technical elements, the better to facilitate direct contact with the actors.
Ironically, "Dogville" features other devices that serve to accentuate its thoroughgoing artificiality. An curiously arch tone is set by an advisory that the tale will consist of nine chapters and a prologue, as well as by a score consisting of baroque music and 19th century-style literary narration spoken by John Hurt in an English accent, all choices at odds with the characters and story at hand.
Then there's the overhead shot of the darkened stage, the floor of which is neatly adorned with markings indicating the location of streets, homes and other structures. Dotting the vast space is the occasional door and window frame, a church belltower, some stair supports, a bare tree and the rocky beginnings of a mountain.
After sounds of a storm and gunshots are heard, a "beautiful fugitive" named Grace (a blond-tressed Kidman) arrives in the tiny town, which is located up a dead end road. Hiding her from gangsters, would-be writer and, in the absence of a clergyman, self-appointed town philosopher and moralist Tom Edison (Paul Bettany) takes Grace in and assures her that the townsfolk are "good people, they're honest people."
In a strange plot construct, Tom proposes a two-week period during which Grace will offer her assistance to the citizens, who will then vote as to whether she can stay or must leave. By this artificial means, she gets to know the self-sufficient locals, who include Tom's doctor father (Philip Baker Hall), store owner Ma Ginger (Lauren Bacall), blind old Jack (Ben Gazzara), Mr. and Mrs. Henson (Bill Raymond, Blair Brown), their son Bill (Jeremy Davies) and daughter Liz (Chloe Sevigny), apple grower Chuck (Stellan Skarsgard) and his long-suffering wife Vera (Patricia Clarkson), reclusive truck driver Ben (Zeljko Ivanek) and some local ladies played by Harriet Anderson, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Cleo King and Shauna Shim.
Visual approach takes some getting used to, and the knowledge that, at least in Cannes, you're in for three hours of unvarying backdrops covered by von Trier's usual tight, jittery camera moves and jumpy editing, forces one to brace oneself for the long haul and acknowledge the no-set approach as a metaphor for a town where no one can have any secrets and people's private business is everyone's business. After a while, one grows somewhat accustomed to the style without ever being allowed to forget about it, but certainly Nicole Kidman fans who wander in never having seen a von Trier film before won't know what hit them.
With the newcomer accepted by the community and spring passing into summer, Grace begins carrying her load and is courted, albeit awkwardly, by Tom, who is far more comfortable assessing and judging his fellow townspeople than he is expressing emotion. Wanted posters appear warning of a "dangerous" missing woman, and a shift in town attitudes about the interloper lead to suspicion, mistreatment, betrayals and Grace's eventual descent to the status of town whore, prisoner and slave.
Dialogue, much of which is delivered in monotonous murmurs, is far from inspired at best, downright goofy when it deals with such notions as the doctrine of stoicism, and preposterous when a discussion of arrogance dominates a key climactic scene. Kidman gives the film a mostly quiet, naturalistic center, Bettany earnestly copes with an overweeningly presumptuous character, and other strong actors (Hall, Skarsgard, Gazzara, Clarkson, et al.) persevere more by virtue of the force of their own personalities than by any depth in their characters as written.
Whereas von Trier in his recent "Golden-Heart" trilogy has led his heroines through an earthly hell to achieve a state of grace, he is determined to have his central character here show no mercy when it comes to punishing her tormentors. Grace is given the position of an all-powerful god, dispensing a Sodom and Gomorrah-like judgment on those among whom she formerly dwelled.
The identification with Dogville and the United States is total and unambiguous, even without the emphatically vulgar use of pointedly grim and grisly photographs of Depression-era have-nots and crime victims under the end credits, accompanied, as if it were needed, by David Bowie's "Young Americans." Through his contrived tale of one mistreated woman, who is devious herself, von Trier indicts as being unfit to inhabit the earth a country that has surely attracted, and given opportunity to, more people onto its shores than any other in the history of the world. Go figure.
Camera (color, widescreen), Anthony Dod Mantle; operator, von Trier; editor, Molly Malene Stensgaard; production designer, Peter Grant; production design creative consultant, Karl Juliusson; set decorator, Simone Grau; costume designer, Manon Rasmussen; light designer, Asa Frankenberg; sound designer (Dolby Digital), Per Streit; line producer, Jonas Frederiksen; assistant director, Anders Refn; casting, Avy Kaufmann, Joyce Nettles (U.K.). Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 19, 2003. Running time: 178 MIN. (English dialogue)
Edit: OK I got it. From www.variety.com:
After critiquing the death penalty in "Dancer in the Dark," Lars von Trier dispenses it in "Dogville," an artistically experimental, ideologically apocalyptic blast at American values that is as obvious in intent as it is murky in aesthetic achievement. Danish auteur has a lot of issues he's working out -- about the U.S., power, arrogance, grace, mercy, forgiveness, revenge, truth and passing judgment, just for starters -- and the way he chews them up and spits them out is, as always, deliberately designed to provoke. Shot with a top cast on a large stage bare but for a few props, hints of sets and a town plan painted on the floor, story of how a female on the run is treated by a small Rocky Mountain community during the Depression is far too indigestible for a public beyond the director's usual audience, despite the toplined performance of Nicole Kidman. Reactions even on the specialized circuit will be all over the map, with best response assured from the Blame America First crowd.
Shown in a three-hour version in Cannes, pic will reportedly be available for theatrical runs in a roughly 140-minute cut.
Sensitive to criticism as ever, von Trier in the film's press book admits that he was inspired to write "Dogville" by American journalists' criticism of his audacity in making the U.S.-set "Dancer in the Dark" without ever having visited the country. If that's the case, to call this new film an over-reaction to a slight reps an understatement of the first order, as there is no escaping the fact that the entire point of "Dogville" is that von Trier has judged America, found it wanting and therefore deserving of immediate annihilation. This is, in short, his "J'accuse!" directed toward an entire nation.
From someone who presented a wholly inauthentic account of the American judicial system in his last film in the interest of attacking it, his new Old Testament view of the world would seem to represent quite a contradiction. But then this is the director who created the Dogme 95 rules of filmmaking only to break them, so consistency is not to be expected, nor is political enlightenment from a man who, again in the press book, maintains that, "I don't see them (Americans) as less evil than the bandit states" they have recently fought.
So if one is to take up von Trier's overt invitation to respond to his film politically, reactions will be intense and based entirely upon one's prior disposition, as nothing in the film is designed to persuade or change anyone's mind. If the director wants more outraged reactions from Americans about his ignorance of their country, he'll certainly be able to fill many clippings books with them this time out.
On the artistic side, however, matters are more complex. In a style inspired directly by the television version of the Royal Shakespeare Co.'s '70s production of "Nicholas Nickleby," but also reminiscent in some ways of American live TV dramas of the '50s, von Trier has stripped his cinema down to bare essentials: actors, text, light, costumes and only token props. Ever since he launched "The Kingdom" a decade ago, von Trier has tried different means to minimize his films' technical elements, the better to facilitate direct contact with the actors.
Ironically, "Dogville" features other devices that serve to accentuate its thoroughgoing artificiality. An curiously arch tone is set by an advisory that the tale will consist of nine chapters and a prologue, as well as by a score consisting of baroque music and 19th century-style literary narration spoken by John Hurt in an English accent, all choices at odds with the characters and story at hand.
Then there's the overhead shot of the darkened stage, the floor of which is neatly adorned with markings indicating the location of streets, homes and other structures. Dotting the vast space is the occasional door and window frame, a church belltower, some stair supports, a bare tree and the rocky beginnings of a mountain.
After sounds of a storm and gunshots are heard, a "beautiful fugitive" named Grace (a blond-tressed Kidman) arrives in the tiny town, which is located up a dead end road. Hiding her from gangsters, would-be writer and, in the absence of a clergyman, self-appointed town philosopher and moralist Tom Edison (Paul Bettany) takes Grace in and assures her that the townsfolk are "good people, they're honest people."
In a strange plot construct, Tom proposes a two-week period during which Grace will offer her assistance to the citizens, who will then vote as to whether she can stay or must leave. By this artificial means, she gets to know the self-sufficient locals, who include Tom's doctor father (Philip Baker Hall), store owner Ma Ginger (Lauren Bacall), blind old Jack (Ben Gazzara), Mr. and Mrs. Henson (Bill Raymond, Blair Brown), their son Bill (Jeremy Davies) and daughter Liz (Chloe Sevigny), apple grower Chuck (Stellan Skarsgard) and his long-suffering wife Vera (Patricia Clarkson), reclusive truck driver Ben (Zeljko Ivanek) and some local ladies played by Harriet Anderson, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Cleo King and Shauna Shim.
Visual approach takes some getting used to, and the knowledge that, at least in Cannes, you're in for three hours of unvarying backdrops covered by von Trier's usual tight, jittery camera moves and jumpy editing, forces one to brace oneself for the long haul and acknowledge the no-set approach as a metaphor for a town where no one can have any secrets and people's private business is everyone's business. After a while, one grows somewhat accustomed to the style without ever being allowed to forget about it, but certainly Nicole Kidman fans who wander in never having seen a von Trier film before won't know what hit them.
With the newcomer accepted by the community and spring passing into summer, Grace begins carrying her load and is courted, albeit awkwardly, by Tom, who is far more comfortable assessing and judging his fellow townspeople than he is expressing emotion. Wanted posters appear warning of a "dangerous" missing woman, and a shift in town attitudes about the interloper lead to suspicion, mistreatment, betrayals and Grace's eventual descent to the status of town whore, prisoner and slave.
Dialogue, much of which is delivered in monotonous murmurs, is far from inspired at best, downright goofy when it deals with such notions as the doctrine of stoicism, and preposterous when a discussion of arrogance dominates a key climactic scene. Kidman gives the film a mostly quiet, naturalistic center, Bettany earnestly copes with an overweeningly presumptuous character, and other strong actors (Hall, Skarsgard, Gazzara, Clarkson, et al.) persevere more by virtue of the force of their own personalities than by any depth in their characters as written.
Whereas von Trier in his recent "Golden-Heart" trilogy has led his heroines through an earthly hell to achieve a state of grace, he is determined to have his central character here show no mercy when it comes to punishing her tormentors. Grace is given the position of an all-powerful god, dispensing a Sodom and Gomorrah-like judgment on those among whom she formerly dwelled.
The identification with Dogville and the United States is total and unambiguous, even without the emphatically vulgar use of pointedly grim and grisly photographs of Depression-era have-nots and crime victims under the end credits, accompanied, as if it were needed, by David Bowie's "Young Americans." Through his contrived tale of one mistreated woman, who is devious herself, von Trier indicts as being unfit to inhabit the earth a country that has surely attracted, and given opportunity to, more people onto its shores than any other in the history of the world. Go figure.
Camera (color, widescreen), Anthony Dod Mantle; operator, von Trier; editor, Molly Malene Stensgaard; production designer, Peter Grant; production design creative consultant, Karl Juliusson; set decorator, Simone Grau; costume designer, Manon Rasmussen; light designer, Asa Frankenberg; sound designer (Dolby Digital), Per Streit; line producer, Jonas Frederiksen; assistant director, Anders Refn; casting, Avy Kaufmann, Joyce Nettles (U.K.). Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 19, 2003. Running time: 178 MIN. (English dialogue)
Last edited by Pants; 05-23-03 at 04:36 PM.
05-23-03, 05:01 PM
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I can't wait to see this.
I find it curious that all though the intent seems to be to critique the US, von Trier casts the film with mostly foriegners. What does that say? Perhaps that in the world at large the US's sins are every nations sins. It's one thing to criticize the US but to do it with an international cast seems to suggest a more global criticism. I'll have to wait till I see it obviously.
I find it curious that all though the intent seems to be to critique the US, von Trier casts the film with mostly foriegners. What does that say? Perhaps that in the world at large the US's sins are every nations sins. It's one thing to criticize the US but to do it with an international cast seems to suggest a more global criticism. I'll have to wait till I see it obviously.
05-23-03, 07:23 PM
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Thanks for the reviews, guys. Von Trier films have usually been hit or miss with me, but this looks very interesting and I'm really looking forward to seeing it.
05-24-03, 10:17 AM
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I was reading somewhere either in Ebert's review or Variety that while a number of film critics were glad to see the film they were equally vocal in expressing they would never have to sit and watch this film ever again.
