Showtimes & Tickets Enter Zip Code:

DOGVILLE
Directed & Written by: Lars von Trier.
Produced by: Vibeke Windeløv.
Director of Photography: Anthony Dod Mantle.
Edited by: Molly Marlene-Stensgard.
Released by: Lions Gate.
Country of Origin: Denmark/Sweden/France/USA/UK (in English). 177 min. Rated: R.
With: Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Paul Bettany, Blair Brown, James Caan, Ben Gazzara, Chloë Sevigny & Stellan Skarsgård.

Director Lars von Trier (Dancer in the Dark) once again indulges in a game of provocation. Set in Depression-era small-town America, gun shots are heard in the distance, and soon thereafter, the willowy Grace (Kidman) is discovered crouching in an mine by Tom (Bettany). In an arrangement brokered by the smitten young man, the town folk offer Grace refuge. In return, she does chores for everyone once a day. But as the authorities continue to search for the fugitive, slowly the town shows its fangs, exacting a higher price. Predictably, Grace follows the path of other doomed von Trier heroines, dog collar in tow.

Filmed on a sound stage with very little in terms of props - chalk markings delineate the fading town (“The Old Lady’s Bench”) - Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town immediately comes to mind. Just like many a high school production, the actors mime opening and closing doors and their activities. There is even a homespun voice over, (“Dogville may be off the beaten path, but it is hospitable, nevertheless”) provided by John Hurt. Fortunately, the hand-held camera, with jump cuts galore, undercuts any preciousness. However, the writing is more like Eugene O’Neill - overwritten. And von Trier’s one-sided depiction of Dogville is fanciful, an obvious metaphor for America, and hard to take seriously.

The film’s length is a bit insufferable, but the story, especially as it takes a turn towards revenge (not unlike another play, Friedrich Durrenmatt’s The Visit), and the cast help to make the film compelling, nonetheless. Although the film does comes to a halt when Grace engages in an allegorical debate with a new arrival in town (Caan).

The fascinating cast includes solid performances by Ben Gazzara, as a blind man with roving hands, and Blair Brown as a judgmental Mrs. Henson; Lauren Bacall as the proud Ma Ginger, who incongruously seems as though she's presiding over a cocktail party, and the superficial eye-rolling turn by Chloë Sevigny. As the core character, Kidman delivers a restraint performance, undercutting the script’s didacticism and literal mindedness.

Dogville’s closing montage features photography from the last century of America’s underbelly. Many of the images are iconic (Dorothea Lange is one of the photographers). But this sequence only points to Dogville’s presumptuousness. Not only is the montage a jolt of reality, but one gets the sense that these indelible images are being used to bring moral weight to a film that can’t provide it on its own.
Kent Turner
March 29, 2004