Dogville (2003)

This film was first introduced to me ten years ago on Ebert & Roper as being something of an anti-American film. Now given that its director Lars von Trier is a self righteous European type and seemingly famous for being anti-most things, its perhaps not surprising that he would make a film that is widely perceived to be anti-American in nature. But it is in the context of the time in which the film was produced, the lead up too and early stages of the second American lead war against Iraq, that the film is perhaps best understood. The film is a parable, the meaning of which is don't trust Americans, they may appear to be largely harmless though notability low brow folks at first glance, but given the right circumstances they become pretty repugnant monsters.

The staging of the film is interesting, its like a minimalist stage play. There is one set, seemingly a warehouse environment with the various houses and buildings of the town of Dogville (a mythic every town USA said to be located in the Rocky Mountains of a Great Depression era United States), drawn in chalk with minimal prop and set accompaniments. The narrative structure is divided into 9 chapters and a prolog and there is a regular narration by John Hurt that is descriptive enough that the audio track of the film could easily be released as a book on tape. These production elements that harken to the stage or literature are counterpointed by the all star international cast of the piece that includes the diverse likes of Nicolle Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Chloe Sevigny, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgard, Ben Gazzara and Patricia Clarkson.

The plot concerns Grace Margaret Mulligan (Kidman) the runaway grown up daughter of a big time gangster (James Caan) who is fleeing her father for a place where she can live with her moral principles. An aspiring young writer/philosopher Tom Edison Jr. (Bettany) who lives in Dogville with his retired doctor father (Philip Baker Hall) befriends Grace and convinces her to let him call a town meeting (Dogville has a population of about 25) on weather or not to grant her asylum as her mob background potentially threats the towns folks safety. Tom Jr. convinces the locals to give Grace a two week trial period to decide weather or they want to continue to shelter her from searching gangsters and local authorities. At Bettany's urging Grace offers to do odd jobs for free for the local towns people to try and endear herself to them, at first this is not received well as the locals are too proud to take that kind of charity, but when the people are convinces to start thinking of Grace's efforts not as doing things they need to be done, but rather things that they would like to be done, well things go much better.

After two weeks the people of Dogville unanimously vote to grant Grace asylum, they even start to pay her some for her efforts, and convert an old building from the towns former mining days into a permanent residence for her. Things go really well for a while, until the towns peoples baser natures start to show through. Hank (Stellan Skarsgard) raps her, and a ten year old boy Grace has been tutoring (Miles Purinton) begins to blackmail her into giving him spanking that he sedo masochistically enjoys. Things get increasingly worse until Grace is literally kept as a slave by the people of Dogville, chained to a heavy weight and used to satisfy the sexual appetites of all the men in town except for Tom Jr. who really loves her, but in time himself will turn against her. The townsfolk blame Grace for her troubles, insisting she brought them upon herself, that they are really being quite generous to her, and refusing to acknowledge among themselves the horrible things they have done to her. The meaning I suppose is that Americans are full of themselves and can never acknowledge the evil that they do, that they heedlessly inflict destruction thinking they are doing good. That Iraq really has weapons of mass destruction and they are freeing the people from a ruthless dictator, never mind the death and civil war they leave in their wake.

You can take or leave this interpretation of the film, but I found it an effective examination of the problem of evil even if you completely disregard the then contemporary political overtones. Self righteous and judgmental at times to be sure, what morality play isn't, but also probing and forces the viewer to confront head on the evil that people (not just Americans) do. Perhaps this even one of von Triers more watchable films. ***