Dogville Confessions

The documentary follows the shooting of Lars von Trier's Dogville. A confessional booth has been set up on the set; the actors and the director take turns going in and speaking to the camera alone. What they say is not always polite. Von Trier's working method, the exhaustion of the cast and the tension on the set all become directly visible. Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgård and Harriet Andersson appear in Sami Saif's fifty-four minute documentary. It is not a conventional behind-the-scenes promotion; von Trier takes his own blocks and doubts into the booth as well. The telling defends nobody. It makes sense without having seen Dogville, but it lands differently for those who have.