The
most welcome surprise of the festival was the arrival of Lars von
Trier, in two films, both as director and actor, and both in top
form. Von Trier’s much-anticipated Dogville
is, despite its 177-minute running length and its horrifying subject
matter -- the progressive dehumanization of one Grace Margaret
Mulligan (Nicole Kidman), a young woman on the run from gangsters in
1930’s America -- well worth the effort of slogging through to a
very satisfying coda. Once Grace arrives in town, the people of
Dogville appear to accept her need for help, especially Tom (Paul
Bettany), a failed writer who seems trapped by the town’s stifling
boredom, its corruption, isolation and hypocrisy, as he sees it.
It’s obvious that Grace is in serious trouble; no sooner is she
hiding in the town’s abandoned mine, then a large car pulls up on
Elm Street, a hand proffers a business card to Tom, and a mysterious
voice implores him to call with any information concerning her
whereabouts. After the visit, the people of Dogville offer her
refuge for a two-week trial period. In exchange, the grateful Grace
volunteers to do chores for them. Soon, she has a very busy schedule
and has won their affection: most appropriately, at a Fourth-of-July
picnic, they offer her permanent residence.
Dogville
is, however, a small town, with its share of unspoken, petty
rivalries and hidden lusts, and it isn’t long before Grace, with
her beauty and intelligence, innocently manages to run afoul of
every one of them. She is gradually turned into a slave, forced by
verbal and physical abuse to follow everyone’s wishes to the
letter. Desperate, she attempts escape, but is betrayed, and returns
to Dogville, where she is forced to endure the ultimate indignity:
chained to her bed with a heavy steel collar around her neck, she
becomes the town whore.
Embarrassed
by what her and their actions have inadvertently revealed to the
people of Dogville about themselves, they conspire to get rid of
her, and they think they know how to do it very cleanly and
conveniently. However, Grace has a few surprises in store for
them…
In
lesser hands, this torturous unfolding of
Peyton-Place-meets-the-Gulag would be all but intolerable, and at
times it seems as if von Trier is laying things on a little too
thickly; the minimalist Our
Town sets, in which all of the actors are reduced to running
around on little more than a painted outline on a soundstage, do
tend to overstate the pettiness of Dogville itself, to the point
where one wants to pull out one’s hair at the overbearing
obviousness of it all (or maybe it’s the gameboard-like symbolism
of the sets, with all of the actors as pawns in von Trier’s
sadistic psychological game). What saves Dogville
the film from becoming like its dreary fictional counterpart is
the spirit that the actors bring to the project. Kidman and Bettany
play their roles like cool poker players, each never revealing their
intentions until the final moments of the film, adding to the
tension of the piece. Von Trier also deftly supplies them with
excellent supporting actors such as Chloe Sevigny and Patricia
Clarkson. Throwing in a few veterans such as Ben Gazzara and Lauren
Bacall only adds to the richness of the psychological mix. But it is
the strength of the ending which reveals the deceptive simplicity of
all that von Trier has presented beforehand. Both Grace and Tom have
hidden surprises for each other and their final showdown has
consequences for everyone in Dogville. It is to von Trier’s credit
that, in having saved up, as it were, all of the film’s energy for
one slam-bang ending, he has left no inconsistencies or
contradictions in its wake.
Review by Carrie Gorringe · Nitrate Online
