Dogville

Dogville (2003) is set in a small town in rural America, and the town has no set. It was shot on a bare soundstage. There are chalk lines on the floor with labels: Elm Street, dog, Tom's house. No walls, no doors, no trees. The actors mime opening doors that are not there, and while someone is inside one house the people in the others remain visible. Nobody in the town can hide anything from anyone, and the audience sees everything at once. The story: a woman named Grace takes refuge there while fleeing gangsters. The town votes to shelter her and asks for small jobs in return. Then the requests increase. Then the hours increase. Then it becomes clear she has nowhere to go, and the town begins to use that. The idea is that it is gradual. Nobody turns into a monster at any point; each step is presented as the reasonable continuation of the last. The absence of a set sharpens it: nothing done can be concealed, and everyone watches and says nothing. Nicole Kidman stars. Over the closing credits, photographs of American poverty run to a David Bowie song, and the film was accused of anti Americanism. Von Trier had never been to America. It is divided into chapters like an eight hour stage work and carries a narrator. It runs 178 minutes. Good for: formal experiment, hard allegory, and von Trier. Less good for: it is very long; it contains rape and systematic degradation, and the ending is merciless.