Hate speech apparently became a problem so serious that increasingly loud and influential voices all over Western world demand global censorship and abolition of rights citizens have taken for granted in past few centuries. Some expression of hate, however, appear to be less serious and more tolerable than others. Unlike people who can expect to have their lives and careers ruined over a passing online remarks made ages ago, certain film authors are celebrated even their work includes hate elevated to genocidal levels. At least this is the impression you might get after watching Dogville, 2003 period drama directed by Lars von Trier.
The film, narrated by John Hurt, is, divided into prologue and nine chapters. The plot takes during Great Depression in Dogville, tiny remote town near abandoned silver mines in mountains of Colorado. Grace Mulligan (played by Nicole Kidman) is a beautiful woman who, while apparently escaping from gangsters from a big city, comes to the town. Tom Edison Jr. (played by Paul Bettany), aspiring writer and self-declared philosopher, meets her and convinces her that the townsfolk would give her shelter. He convinces people of Dogville to do so in exchange for Grace doing various chores. The arrangement works at first and Grace seems happy, but community’s mood sours when it is revealed that Grace is sought both by gangsters and authorities. Townsfolk become hostile and begin abusing her, which involves multiple instances of rape. At the end, Grace is turned over to the gangster whose boss (played by James Caan) is revealed to be Grace’s father.
Dogville is an art film and von Trier makes this point very clear with its unconventional style, completely antithetical to Hollywood. Entire film was shot on single Copenhagen stage, with sets made in style of experimental theatre, with many objects being simply depicted by labels or chalk lines on the floor. The effect seems distracting and pretentious at first, but those viewers who absorb the first shock could easily focus on story and characters, which are played by truly superb cast. Nicole Kidman plays role of beautiful woman who goes through emotional roller coaster with great ease, and same can be said of Paul Bethany, who is very good in morally questionable and complex character of self-important intellectual who gives “high” and “moral” justifications for all the acts, good and bad, that his townsfolk do. Supporting cast is also very good, especially Željko Ivanek as one of the creepiest among Grace’s tormentors and Lauren Bacall, veteran of Classic Hollywood, for whom the role of matriarchal Ma Ginger represented one of the last grand performances in her long career.
Great acting and von Trier’s directorial skill, on the other hand, can’t compensate for many flaws of Dogville. The most obvious is that his film is completely unpleasant viewing experience. This is only partly due to its excessive length of almost three hours. Much of the content that takes part in those three hours is increasingly stagey and pretentious dialogue, but also rather horrific abuse main heroine takes from her tormentors, which, although not portrayed graphically, makes a good case for all those claiming that von Trier takes sadistic pleasure in treatment of his heroines (like in the case of Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark). This alleged sadism gets to another, even more disturbing level, at the very end which features scene of massacre that involves even children. Von Trier during this scene tries to manipulate audience into actually cheering for such atrocity and even, rather explicitly, argues that this act should be repeated on much broader level and instead of tiny mining town should be applied to entire America. While, some, mostly US critics, were apalled, von Trier received warm welcome and cheers from critics in Europe, which shouldn’t be that surprising, because the film’s premiere coincided with US invasion of Iraq, an event that stirred anti-American sentiments on the Old Continent to the unprecedented levels. Whether von Trier really shared such views or simply try to maintain his reputation of cinema “shock jock” and enfant terrible might be a matter of debate. What is not debatable is that the content of this film, if in another settings and with slightly different characters, would have caused uproar and cancellations. Those who decide to watch Dogville, however, should do so with great caution.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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