Shopping the Film Stash #4 - Dogville

*Whoops forgot to publish this*

I can't imagine how difficult it was to review Dogville as a film journalist.  I personally could never have reviewed it objectively because of the emotional journey and visceral toll this brought me.  But luckily this is a personal blog so I will not have to worry about that until I am being paid.  Any day now....

Dogville tells the story of a young woman Grace, Nicole Kidman, who, seeking sanctuary from a gangster, stumbles into a tiny, isolated village and thus comes under the mercy of its mysterious inhabitants.

At first, though the village elders are reluctant to take Grace in  and shelter her from her undefined threat, once she has been welcomed into the community, things seem altogether rosy.  Lars von Trier is the master of luring one in to a false sense of security (hark back to the lavish wedding festivities in Meloncholia, the seemingly innocent band of outsiders in The Idiots).

Little by little, deceit and foreboding treacle into proceedings.  As the vulnerable asylum seeker, the residents of Dogville begin to take advantage of Grace both mentally and physically.  They use their apparent kindness in taking her in as collateral to commit abhorrent acts.

Just when Grace, and the audience, think that they can rely on Tom (Paul Bettany) to uphold his knight in shining armour role, he too succumbs to the decaying morality of the Dogville locals.

Set

Aside from the relentless storyline, one of the most striking elements of the film is obviously the set design.  The sparse, stage-like open plan serves to reiterate the bleakness of Grace's position and the invisible walls emphasise the ignorance of Dogville folk.  She is helpless in the isolated and unforgiving terrain of Dogville.

Without spoiling anything, just a note of the closing credits, whereby the use of the David Bowie's "Young Americans" inspires a severe "a-ha" moment.  Von Trier's scathing criticism is as equally grim as this bastardised Gothic fairytale.

Dogville and its people represent the nature of human flaws and the misguidance of greed and selfishness that in the end cripple modern society.  The vocabulary of cruelty and manipulation are all too familiar, and the casualness with which they are wielded in Dogville provoke uncomfortable reassessments, particularly alongside the final, redemptive act of the film.