Dogville (2003) – 3/5

The one mountain village you certainly never want to visit

„Dogville“ is a co-production between a massive total of nine European countries, but the United States are not included there to reach double-digit territory, even if the film is set in a fictitious American city next to the mountains. The writer and director here is Lars von Trier, so fittingly Denmark is first in this list of production countries. Due to the cast being almost exclusively native English speakers, this movie is from beginning to end in the English language. Von Trier was in his mid40s when he shot this movie back in 2003 still relatively early in the new millennium and this means that he is now in his mid60 as the movie is having its 20th anniversary. This was not really the reason though why it was shown at a movie theater again, but the reason was that it was part of a film series with focus on Denmark’s greatest or at least most known and most famous films. There’s shorter versions out there too that were approved by von Trier, but this movie in its original form comes really close to the three-hour mark, so it is certainly among the filmmaker’s longest creations. I will not go very much into detail about the cast, just mention a few names. The lead actress is of course Nicole Kidman and this film is from the year when she won her (so far) only Academy Award. James Caan is part of the cast and he died not too long ago. Same is true for Philip Baker Hall who is always easy to identify. Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall is also included. She lived for another decade after this movie and stayed prolific until her death. Patricia Clarkson you will find and she is an actress I am not too big on, but her role here was alright, maybe because she was also barely recognizable with her glasses and unusual hair color. I had to look twice if it is really her. Jean-Marc Barr is an actor who has worked with von Trier on other occasions. The narration comes from William Hurt, also no longer with us and I enjoyed listening to him, so it was nice that there was a great deal of narration. Paul Bettany looks so young here and not really as hunky as he has since growing older. Jeremy Davies and Zeljko Ivanek are actors I always kinda appreciate. Same is true for Udo Kier who has worked with von Trier on so many occasions. Same applies to Stellan Skarsgård, he is also there all the time and the difference to Kier is that he has played much more significant characters with more screen time in LvT’s movies. Kier’s characters are usually minor, only one scene, but he is the epitome of a regular when it comes to LvT. The final mention goes to Oscar nominee Chloë Sevigny.

With the exception of Kidman perhaps, this is never a film about individual actors though, but instead all about the ensemble cast. Individually, nobody really has the material to stand out. This is kinda fitting because they also belong together in a way from beginning to end, first when we cannot be sure if these townspeople will accept Kidman’s character and let her stay with them and then, as the film progresses, they are getting crueler and crueler and she basically turns into a prisoner there in the end. The one thing you can ask is to what extent she could have stopped it early on or if she had always been at their mercy. You could guess right away already that there is maybe more darkness to this town or village and you would be correct. Maybe „Elm Street“ (without elms, great job from Hurt too there) was an indicator already as a street with this name is the defining location of a horror film franchise. Of course, you could also guess that there was mystery, maybe something wrong with Kidman’s character. She is a woman on the run from mobsters apparently, but there are indicators that she may have other enemies too when the police come looking for her and even talk about her being connected to a bank robbery. It all could have been so harmonic. She falls in love with one of the locals, every single inhabitant agrees that she can stay, she does her best to help and please her new neighbors etc. But it just wasn’t meant to be. The fact that the people living there next to her could rat her out anytime, maybe cost her her life, at least her freedom, backfires and they start treating her more and more poorly in the process. She may have her man at her side, but nonetheless she cannot really do anything against it. As it keeps escalating more and more, she is not just bullied for where she sets foot on one occasion or that she is careless with work (and she works for literally everybody there at some point and everybody criticizes her), but she is even sexually abused and blackmailed that she has to accept the abuse or they will just go and tell the authorities or the criminals about her whereabouts. The best example of her suffering is really then the depiction of this heavy item she has to carry around like a dog, so they always know where she is and that keeps her from getting away. She actually got almost driven away on one occasion, but then the guy took her back after having his fun with her before that too of course.

I already mentioned her man in this film, the one played by Bettany and when things get tough, we understand that his allegiance is also with the townsfolk and not with her. He even complains to her that she does not see which risks he is taking by siding with her here and there. She is 100% alone. He is also really the driving force when they decide in the end that she has to go and they inform the mobsters to come and pick her up. Those arrive immediately afterwards, but this decision backfires quickly for the people living there. The big twist there is that she was basically just running away from her father who is the mobsters‘ leader and she wanted to be left alone and no longer be involved with his involvements perhaps. However, all the things that happened to her since the start did something with her and, even if not overly enthusiastic, she decides to join forces again with her father and the first move is basically that fueled by all the evil that she ran into being inside her now she has everybody murdered on the spot. Even a little baby is shot. The woman is pretty gruesome with the exact ways of her revenge too. For example she gives a very emotional woman a choice that really is not a choice at all because the latter cannot decide what she does this very moment and cannot hold her tears back either. Oh wait, not everybody is murdered. The dog lives. For a little while at least. This was also an interesting reference to the name of the place. Obviously.

In general, this movie is definitely among von Triers most stylized films. Some may criticize that it could even be style over substance and I see movie critics did not like it as much as „ordinary“ movie-goers. I think the entire idea was highly fascinating though. How the location we have here is really small and the action also never moves outside of the town. There are houses and a church as we see and we can look right inside all these places all the time. There are no roofs and walls that get in the way of our vision. I remember that in the early years of the new millennium, the television series „Big Brother“ was still very known and maybe it inspired von Trier to some extent. Still, there was the irony that the place looked clearly different to the people living there. They perceived the houses as actual constructions and not just the basics painted to the floor the way we see them. We hear knocking sounds on inexistent doors. Same applies to the mine where Kidman’s character was hiding on a few occasions. On one occasion, we also see her in her little home and the others sitting inside the church. All in one shot. This was depicted towards the end when Bettany’s character comes to see her, but leaves quickly again. Von Trier loves to divide his films into chapters. It is something he constantly does and this film is no exception. Of course, given the running time, the number of chapters here easily reaches double-digit territory. In the end, he even mocks the audience a bit or at least those people who just want the really long film to end, so he calls the final chapter it was I think also something along the lines of „where the movie ends“. I don’t know the exact words. I am not sure if I myself wanted the movie to end there. I think maybe a bit yes.

It was alright entertainment though for the most part and I enjoyed the watch and I was glad that I went and watched this film. Another successful example of an old(er) movie coming back to the big screen and many people showing up to watch it. This was of course already before von Trier’s escalation at Cannes. I don’t want to go into major detail there now as it was linked to „Melancholia“, but the more I see from von Trier, the more I recognize that he really worked a lot with female protagonists in his films, more than males, and he almost always has them suffer a lot. Is this misogyny? Debatable, but if the art aspect is there, it is always acceptable I believe and surely it is all the time there with von Trier. Nobody can deny that. Admittedly, in his films with Björk and Emily Watson, there is a great deal of suffering too, but here the protagonist (Kidman) somehow finds her way out of her misery, so it is a case of innocence lost you could say. This is almost it then. Just some more brainstorming: I wonder to what extent the Bettany’s character’s name here is a coincidence. And I see the movie won an award at the Cannes Film Festival, namely the dog did? That is a bit absurd as we only see it very briefly at the very end. Maybe the reason was that the dog was the only town character that survived? I don’t know. Strange choice. Apart from that, the film scored solid awards recognition in both Europe and, to a lesser extent, also America. Maybe von Trier’s Best Director win at the European Film Awards was its biggest triumph. Or maybe it is me giving „Dogville“ a positive recommendation. Worth seeing.