Viraj's Weblog

Here be spoilers.

This movie is about 3 hours of Nicole Kidman getting raped by 10 or so males in a town called Dogville. Dogville is supposed to be a representation of America. Grace (Kidman) is sort of an innocent fugitive which the town takes under their wing. She offers her help to do different tasks around town. Soon they start to take advantage of her more and more, and if there ever was a movie showing a 'deflowering' of an innocent girl it is this one. Eventually she becomes a slave, chained, sexually assaulted, etc. Kidman looks beautiful and acts great though, as always.

The director absolutely hates the US, and it is vividly apparent. I can understand hatred of a society, but the film borders on insanity (even Ebert thinks so). If it were not for the ending, I would have been very disappointed with the film. Granted there are some evil people in this world, but they are in every country just as much as they are in America. The ending can only be described as revenge. Grace turns into the person she most desperately does not want to become. Giving orders to kill a mother and her children, Grace says "Make the mother watch and tell her you will stop killing the rest of her children if she doesn't cry." Of course she does cry. But it is revenge, and at this point you agree with her.

The movie is heavy on dialogue and philsophical ponderings. One thing I really liked is that the Kidman character originally is a merciful one, but the town changes her. She was idealistic, and believed that rapists and murderers should be forgiven for their sins. However, when those sins are done to her, though she tries, she cannot forgive. It is a double-standard, and this is where I think the true social criticism of the movie is.

I also liked the set pieces. The town is represented by chalk lines on the ground, and there are no walls. I'm not sure what the director was trying to say here, maybe that the town is so dependent on each other that they cannot survive on their own.

The movie was directed by Lars Von Trier. I remember the first movie I saw by him, called Zentropa. It was a very strange and hypnotic film. One thing I distinctly remember was the main character dying at some point and the film sort of following him through his own death sequence, and the nothingness afterwards. It was probably the most eery drowning sequence I've ever seen, and gave a good feeling of what death must be like. What's worse is the movie kept going, without its main character. I was very intrigued by it, and watched some of his other films which I loved (like Dancer in the Dark). He takes alot of risks, and he has alot of talent.