reviewDOGVILLE

To call "Dogville" one of the most anti-American movies of all time would not be an understatement.
In fact, to mistake the film for anything but would be to miss the point of von Trier's vehement
statement. Coming from a filmmaker who -- as far as I know -- has never steeped foot on U.S. soil,
the politics of the screenplay seem grounded in some misunderstood hatred or currently fashionable
anti-U.S. sentiment. So, upon leaving the film, there is much to question about the director's reason
for depicting America in the manner in which he has. Artistically speaking, however, von Trier's
experiment is one that ultimately succeeds due to the visually spare treatment of his subject and a
handful of searing performances.

"Dogville" might be called an experiment because of its truly unconventional filming style. As has
been reported from Cannes, the film is essentially a filmed play, with a bare stage complete with chalk
outlines indicating locations like "Elm Street" and "Ben's House" among a few doorframes (no walls or
ceilings) and tiny props (a telephone, ceramic figurines). Each of the small town's fifteen or so
residents can constantly be seen in the background even when the audience is "in" someone else's
house, and true to its dinner theater aesthetic, we hear the squeak and slam of doors as characters
pantomime "entering" and "exiting" each others' homes.

At first the plot seems as thin as Dogville's nonexistent walls, but it soon builds into an inescapable
critique of American society and its treatment of foreigners. This is all played out in an
obvious-but-still-compelling allegory in which Grace (Nicole Kidman, representing the "immigrant")
stumbles into a small Rocky Mountain town during the Depression. Running away from mobsters,
she encounters Tom Edison (Paul Bettany) in the titular dead-end township. Instantly smitten, he
proposes to his small conservative community that they harbor her out of compassion and human
decency. Their help won't come easy, though; she must spend an hour a day helping each resident
with chores such as babysitting and apple-picking for the period of two weeks before they'll vote on
her acceptance.

Without delving too much into the rest of the plot, Grace is eventually allowed to stay, but the
greediness of the town's residents soon takes its toll on the ever-forgiving outsider, who eventually
subjects herself to their various means of torture until the gangsters catch up with her and offer to
take her back. The outcome of that decision involves some of the most disturbing violence seen
onscreen in years -- despite the fact that the guns on display don't "go off" in the literal sense and no
blood is seen onscreen.

From the outset, von Trier's political agenda is very obvious. In fact, through the articulate dialogue
and step-by-step plot progression, he seems to be mapping out the rise and fall of what he deems to
be the typical immigrant experience. (Title cards for the 3-hour-long movie's chapters show titles like
"Where the Town of Dogville Bears its Teeth" and imply a fate that seems foretold.) Plainly put, as
the extended metaphor eventually shows the audience, people come to this country just looking for
help. Despite the fact that charity is initially given, Americans can't help being greedy are and unable
to really trust outsiders to any considerable degree. We thus enforce Draconian laws and proceed to
rape (both literally and figuratively) such immigrants for all they are worth -- since anyone in our
position would do the same.

But the film's climactic violence creates a noticeable tear in von Trier's twisted -- albeit consistent --
logic. Are the hardworking immigrants that America allegedly chews up and spits out the ones that
eventually consider violent, terrorist acts? Or are the most virulent foreign detractors of American
sentiment (i.e. Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein) ones that fault our treament of foreigners in
other countries? With the 9/11 symbolism clearly evident in the final frames of the film, it's a tough
pill for an American viewer to swallow -- and it makes one think that von Trier may be fuzzying his
math just a little. (A montage of Dorothea Lange-esque photos of American poverty during the
closing credits, set to David Bowie's "Young Americans," doesn't make that pill go down any easier.)

The film is a film, though -- not solely a doctrine on American foreign policy -- so its artistic qualities
must be merited. And indeed they deserve merit. The shaky digital camerawork and off-putting
jump cuts evoke appropriate feelings of unexpected tension in a foreign place, while the bare
production design contributes to the themes of communal interrelatedness and exploring society at its
most exposed. Ace videographer Anthony Dod Mantle asserts his standard beautifully composed
shots; one of Grace and the town's blind man (Ben Gazzara), sitting by a window during an orange
sunset as he relates memories of images he thinks he has seen, is truly haunting. Other sequences
involving Grace beneath a watchful full moon and the gradual change of the seasons are similarly
memorable.

But ultimately, it's the performances that hold the film together when the politics seem to be fighting
for center stage. In contrast to her showy turn in "Moulin Rouge!" and her monologue-heavy
Oscar-winning work in "The Hours," Nicole Kidman offers a very quiet and nuanced performance
here, never raising her voice above a whisper and often speaking in curt phrases and sentences. Her
thoughts and words come out naturally, and it never appears as though she's straining to emote.
Kidman's innocence and beauty are crucial to the plot of the film, and she conveys both believeably
and sympathetically.

Paul Bettany is the real find, though. As the character who must directly confront his conflicting
feelings -- of loyalty to Dogville vs. his love for Grace -- he gets the chance to display frustration,
guilt, earnestness, shame, sorrow, selfishness, and deviousness with the ease of a seasoned veteran.
The less-featured characters all have their moments as well, including a scarily good performance by
Patricia Clarskon (who takes part in two of the movie's most heartbreaking scenes, in which she goes
from being the ruthless protagonist to the helpless antagonist), an earnest turn by the aforementioned
Ben Gazzara, and a brutal portrayal by Stellan Skarsgaard as a fellow "outsider" who long ago became
insitutionalized by Dogville.

While much of Lars von Trier's assault on America is bound to be found offensive by many Yanks on
this side of the Atlantic, there is no doubt he has created a work of art that holds up well aesthetically
and emotionally. A series of compelling scenes will make "Dogville" hard to forget -- patriot or not --
and the filmmaker's opinions ultimately deserve consideration no matter what their progeny or effect.