Directed by Lars Von Trier
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Clarkson, Chloe Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgard, Blair Brown, Ben Gazarra, Philip Baker Hall, Bill Raymond, John Hurt, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Cleo King, Jeremy Davies, Jean-Marc Barr, James Caan, Zeljko Ivanek, Harriet Andersson, Udo Kier, Shauna Shim, Miles Purinton, Evelina Brinkemo, Anna Brobeck, Tilde Lindgren, Evelina Lundqvist, Helga Olofsson
2004 – 177 minutes
Danish writer-director Lars von Trier’s films are usually thought provoking and disturbing, the kind that jostle us out of our complacency. If you like regular films then this is not your cup of tea. A bit like a staged play, with minimalist setting, hardly any overt cinematography and extremely slow paced. That’s what Dogville looks and feels like at the beginning but only to gradually reveal itself as extremely powerful film.
The film is the first in the USA - Land of Opportunities trilogy, followed by Manderlay (2005) and Washington, (2007).
Von Trier’s films are philosophical, where the filmmaker tries to explore socio-political, ideological and perhaps even existentialist ideas of love, hate, generosity, innate human meanness, violence et al. Like Tom in the film it’s an attempt to understand people and work out a solution with “illustration” to use Tom’s words.
The entire story revolves around the little town of Dogville, set in a small Colorado town in the Rocky Mountains, cut off from the rest of the world. The setting is stage like with houses, people and streets chalk marked on the stage .
. Dogville is extremely transparent and yet very secretive. Visually the audience sees everything on stage, nothing is hidden, yet there’s a conniving air all the time- whispers and scrutinizing looks.
The story begins with the arrival of a beautiful stranger, Grace (Nicole Kidman) to Dogville. The town soon discovers that she is a fugitive on the run. Tom, the idle philosopher and writer convinces the town to save Grace from the Gangsters who are pursuing her by letting her stay in the town. The hostile looking town people agree to Tom’s idea to let Grace stay for two weeks on a trial basis. Grace has to prove her worth, her uselessness or in short has to make her be liked in general. Gradually as the town warms up to her presence, they start accepting her into their work and life. At the end of the two week period, the town meets to decide Grace’s fate. Despite Grace’s fears, the town votes for her, all fifteen of them. Grace stays and becomes a companion, a helper and as the film progresses a slave- emotionally, physically and sexually.
Grace is trapped in the Town as the town people exploit her haplessness. As the film progresses Dogville’s inhumanness becomes apparent. It’s a hellish world where even little children are no longer innocent. Even Tom’s love is gradually revealed as shallow, a lot like his spineless philosophy, Grace becomes just a device he uses for his illustrations.
The unexpected and rather bizarre ending is startling. Unlike in Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark that remains a narrative of unmitigated victim hood, Dogville ends with Grace’s brutal revenge.
The final remarkable shot of the camera zooming out and the suddenly visible and madly barking dog is well synchronized with the first aerial shot of the town, and the camera that closes in slowly. The victim turns victimizer, humans are revealed as beasts. Surprising it’s the vicious dog that is let to survive. Perhaps the animal is less of a beast than Dogville‘s inhabitants, or perhaps violence and brutality will never end, the dog is strangely also an emblem of a more naked kind of aggression- that of the mobsters. Grace returns a full circle back to what she was running away from- her mobster father’s ideology. All her humanizing theories fall flat in the face of an inherently sadistic humanity, where violence has to be met with more violence. It’s a rather sad and disturbing picture of humankind and the fact the Von Trier sets his story in America is even more telling. The film offers no solution just contemplates on the basic human nature. Grace’s revenge at the end shatters any hope for the survival of finer human emotions. Grace has to break away from the Christian connotations of her name to be able to survive. But then the film doesn’t celebrate Grace’s revenge either .Perhaps the subtext is that evil breeds evil, the hunted and the hunter merge, perhaps it wouldn’t be too far fetched to relate it to the issues of terrorism plaguing contemporary America.
Von Trier’s cinematography is usually radical. The minimalist stage setting is at first discomforting. If you can sit through the first 10 min of the film, get yourself slowly acquainted with the stage, the film then is pretty engrossing.
Broken up into 9 chapters, reminds one of Goddard’s avant garde cinema. The setting is then a bit like existential theatre –nothing and everything at the same time. The bare shrub echoes Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. But despite or perhaps due to such a setting the film gains a certain intensity. The audience in the absence of a rich mise-en-scène focuses more on the acting and the Von Trier’s actors do a wonderful job. It’s no doubt a film that’s disturbing yet leaves much food for thought.
Reviewed by Deepa Nair
We gave away 2 passes to the theatre premier of The Lives of Others in Bangalore last week. The winner was selected from those who had added the movie to their Watch List.
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