I have been reluctant to watch Dogville because I drag my feet before watching any Lars von Trier film. As a completist, I plan to watch all his films because he is a genuine artist, but I generally do not enjoy them because the man has a warped way of seeing that world in broader terms. Ever since seeing Breaking the Waves, I immediately understood his theology, Christianity without Christ, but with women as Christ figures to be tortured culminating in a cathartic moment that is not usually redemptive and can occasionally be condemning. This torture has misogynistic undertones, but are balanced by his self-hating depiction of men as craven, simple creatures in comparison to his more thoughtful, complex women characters. He is a misanthrope with flashes of admiration for women’s ability to exist slightly above the pain of the temporal realm. Most of his films are deliberately constructed to be almost unwatchable and unremittingly bleak, i.e. a couple of his films from The Golden Heart trilogy, which include Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark yet I would suggest that as his career continues, he has shown his peculiar, unique blend of hope and/or dread with his Depression trilogy films, Antichrist, Melancholia, and Nymphomaniac in which he tires of simply putting women through the wringer and wants a more explosive denouement. If his interesting women got tortured, then everyone else deserved worse.
Dogville is the first of von Trier’s proposed trilogy, The Land of Opportunities films, which are supposed to be set in the US, and acts as a midpoint between his earlier brutal, narrower vision films and his later epic, broader scope films. With a punishing two-hour fifty-eight minute run time from a director allegedly so demented that even Nicole Kidman, who stars as Grace, the protagonist, was supposed to appear in all three films, but left the project after one, why would anyone voluntarily sit through such a film? After I heard that this film influenced Ari Aster’s Midsommar, a film that I adore, I knew that the time had finally come to watch this film and Manderlay, the second in The Land of Opportunities trilogy—the third film, Wasington, has not been made yet. Aster is the kind of filmmaker that seems to have survived something terrible, had therapy and became empathetic as a result so you could brunch with him, and he would be incredibly understanding and a good friend. von Trier is the obnoxious, former philosophy major in college who decided to take hard drugs, tries to be provocative and does something horrible to you so you avoid him and would not entirely be surprised if he got arrested for having a house of horrors.
Dogville is the anti-Our Town that styles itself as a sanctuary against the rotten city. Paul Bettany, who also refuses to work with von Trier again and has never watched this film, plays Tom, the self-appointed, hypocritical moral leader of the town, decides to prove it by providing refuge to Grace from people looking for her; however the town’s hospitality begins to turn sinister as she is at their complete mercy and power and must work to repay her debt to them. Will Grace survive her stay at Dogville? Will she be found? What are Dogville’s citizens capable of? Trigger warning: lots of rape.
Dogville is visually sparse for von Trier. He stages it like a play in a black box theater. The narrative has a prologue and nine acts, which made me wonder if this film also influenced Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria. The audio is realistic. You may not see a dog, but you can hear him. It is set in the early twentieth century in a Colorado mining town. Grace plays *gasp* a Christ like figure, but which Christ is von Trier modeling Grace on. It is as if this film answers the question of how people would treat Jesus if He came to the US today then added the twist of making Him a woman. Considering that Kidman’s unique gift as an actor is the ability to shine love upon anyone at a moment’s notice, speak tenderly and softly without sounding stupid then turn cold on a dime, Kidman may be von Trier’s best woman Christ figure to date.
Many critics hate Dogville because they are offended that von Trier would critique American society when he has never been here missing the fact that while he is specifically using US as the setting, von Trier is notoriously disdainful of human society. Von Trier makes the movie so long and sparse so he could fully immerse us in the rhythms of the town and notice the gradual transformation from friendly façade to gleeful slaveholders so we can fully empathize with Grace’s plight until we feel as trapped as she does so when we get to the denouement, we will be cheering, not horrified. Without any supernatural elements, von Trier strips ordinary folk of their good people drag and reveals all of them, including the women and children, as gleeful, sadistic, greedy people who style themselves as benefactors, but prefer to project all their evil characteristics and frustrations with life on to their hapless captive. Even before Grace appears, they are horrible people on a smaller scale: price gougers, liars, demanding adulation and respect without earning it. It is no accident that their temple does not have a pastor-the Holy Spirit has already fled this place when Grace appears.
Dogville’s central question is power, responsibility and accountability-how do you wield it if you have it? How do you treat a person with no power even when you know of her good character, and she has shown you nothing but kindness. Their growing hatred of her is a hatred of themselves. As Grace sees them as they really are, not who they profess themselves to be, they act as if obliterating her can be equated as preserving their reputation as if committing further evil does not actually reflect how reprobate they are.
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On a human level, I love the ending of Dogville and feel like it makes what came before worth it. Grace as the Christ figure is unknowingly returned to her Father, a gangster, and decides to eschew forgiveness for punishment because the citizens of Dogville are irredeemable. She is actually powerful, but was trying to make life on Earth better. By rejecting her, they reject her mercy and love so the fire next time. Dogville is ultimately a rape revenge movie where Jesus gets down off the cross then begins kicking some ass. It is the second coming of Christ and no one fares well on judgment day. If the porcelain figures represent the villagers, they wrote their own ending like Pharoah. The curtains on her father’s car reminded me of the Holy of Holies where being in God’s presence could mean a death sentence. In a world filled with injustice, the idea of God punishing people is appealing. The end credits show photographs of Americans in poverty with David Bowie’s The Young Americans playing over it, which made it more haunting.
I have to disagree with critics who think that it is an unfair characterization of America. von Trier nailed how Americans dehumanize people so they can revel in human sacrifice with no signs of abatement. His only mistake was that average people do no randomly sing God Bless America during small scale Fourth of July celebrations.