Dogville (2003)

Dogville is a small mountain village outside of George Town; it is a tight community of good people who look after each other. However Tom, the town's writer and moral heart feels that the people are not caring deep down. He has the opportunity to test this theory when a woman, Grace, stumbles into the village to escape gangsters. He challenges them to hide Grace and take her in - and is pleasantly surprised as they gradually do. In return she agrees to do work for the villagers - however the relationship begins decreasingly pure and increasingly exploitative.

I have a natural dislike for films that come across as pretentious or arty for art's sake, so you can imagine I approached this film with slight trepidation despite not having seen any clips of it. However, I did really like the film and was surprised just how quickly the three hours flew by. In terms of the plot, it is more than up to the task of the three-hour running time - in fact I (and most of the audience) stayed in my seat until the very last credit had run over great photographs and the great Bowie's `Young Americans'. The plot is good enough to be accepted but you do need to see past the script and look at what it is saying to appreciate it - although having said that it would still grip me even if it hadn't made me think.

Leaving the cinema I felt that I hadn't really bought the film's moral that nobody is really `good' because I felt that most people are not bad, and certainly not to this extent; but I think my mind was stuck on the specifics of the film rather than the meaning. In the film everyone is socially polite and restrained, but once the chance to take advantage comes, it is increasingly taken (albeit to extremes). I felt the film was particularly harsh to Tom, who was actually a `good' person - however I think time has allowed me to understand it better. We are not good people. We do take advantage of others, whether it be individuals (while trying to keep up our good public image as much as we want) or groups. Even those who turn a blind eye are `bad' simply because they could have acted for good and they didn't.

I saw this film two weeks after illegal immigrants drowned in the UK while picking cockles for very, very low wages - they were caught in mudflats by the rising tide. While the obvious `bad' people are those who made them work like this, many others knew of the work and ignored it. More pertinently to the film is the fact that a vulnerable and needy group were exploited by society - just as Grace was here. I didn't get the photographs over the end credit (I was into the music!) but they were all of the poor or minorities etc on the fringe of society - I found this challenging. When many of us see people in need we will do enough to look `good' and keep our social niceties (ie put a £ in the cup) just like those in Dogville did. We all feel good after this, but this film challenges that idea of `good' as wholly inadequate and that just being polite and moving on is still `bad' even if it is on a sliding scale. This is not to say that the film's plot and themes are perfect, but even flawed they are clear and will keep you thinking of the film long after it ends.

Of course it is unrelentingly bleak for the entire second half, but this is the film and I had to accept it for what it was. In terms of being arty, I found the bleak stage to work very well. The only downside of it was cuts from very black scenes to white scenes hurt my

Fmovies: Initially I found the 'play' set-up gimmicky and disconcerting, however I soon forgot all about the framing and became fixated on the picture itself. There are no special effects nor camera tricks and make-up is kept to a bare minimum, which allows us to focus purely on the story and the quality of the acting; both of which are exemplary. Nicole Kidman is amazing as usual bringing a wonderful vulnerability and frailty to her character which conceals an underlying ruthlessness and brutality. Ample support comes from co-stars Betthany and Chloe Sevigny and in truth the whole cast is frighteningly convincing.

The story is simple, a young woman who it appears is on the run from the mob seeks refuge in a small town known as Dogville. The residents who are initially wary of her soon warm to her and welcome her into their midst. This however, comes with a price she must do small favours in return for refuge. Inevitably greed, desire and mistrust take over the residents which corrupts them and has devastating consequences for all involved.

The dramatic shift in the mentality of the townspeople is so well handled and expertly crafted by Von Trier, that it makes the emotional payoff which one receives at the end of this film even greater. It is utterly compelling and has universal themes. Ultimately, this is a film which may serve as a cautionary tale for all self-proclaimed 'civilised' societies and as a treatise upon karmic retribution.

This is probably the most shocking movie experience I've ever had, not only because of the emotional impact, but because this is truly a moral-horror movie that slapped me in the face.

The film is probably one of the best moral tales ever told, in which Nicole Kidman and all the supporting cast shined. Why did the makers try to make it look incomplete? Why haven't they used more sophisticated production set rather than some made-believe structures directly exposing the film studio's interior environment to you? I didn't get it at first, thinking this might just be another pretending piece of crap that tried to be "artistic".

However as the story proceeded, the whole thing started to make senses. Featuring some of the best character study I've ever seen, the story involved you into the adventure of Grace, the main protagonist who's supposed to be despised by us logically and naturally. Then, the audiences were forced into a game that the filmmakers keep you guessing what would happen the next, until the very end.

The ending, in my opinion, is the most shocking and frightening ending ever seen in a film. Dogville is by no means marketed as a horror movie, but if one believes himself/herself to have the moral high ground, he or she should stand the test the movie has given us. For me, I chose to live with all the miseries happened to Grace and play along just like every other character in the story, "sh!t happens" as they say. This, has not only put me in shame but also freaked me out at the end. Considering the potential spoilers I would caused, I'd suggest you go see it for yourself.

With superb acting, very well plotted story and a shocking message for senseless societies, Dogville is easily a masterpiece.

Dogville fmovies. When I started the movie and realized that it isn't really a movie, that it is more like a play and that there is really a lack of props and scenery I thought to myself, My God, what the heck did I buy???? I'm a huge fan of Nicole Kidman and she is the reason I bought it in the first place. The movie (or play), whatever u might wanna call it, drew me in and I couldn't stop watching. The end is so powerful, I was speechless. That's one of the best movies I have seen in a long, long, long, long time. I don't agree with the Anti-American comments I read here in some of the comments. Human emotions are all the same all over the world and this movie could have played in any country. Anyway, go watch this movie it's soooo worth it.

Tough. Once again Lars von Trier tortures the audience (as he did previously on Dancer in the Dark) by upraising the darkest side of the human being. From the beginning you know that things can only get worse, but I doubt that one can figure out neither what's to come nor the powerful conclusion. Nicole Kidman's interpretation is perfect - intense, poignant, passionate, you name it. She is fantastic and so is the small cast locked inside Dogville's scenario (a wonderful creation - I wonder how something so simple can bring such a strong effect). Again, the entire cast is fantastic and for that goes an extra credit for Lars von Trier. His capability of pushing actors to the limit and extracting painful emotions from them creates a heavy atmosphere, full of tension and, at the same time, so familiar. It is not that Dogville represents the essence of our communities, but it exposes some aspects of our lives that we prefer to hide under the carpet.

I started watching Dogsville and felt like turning it off.. after all, what kind of movie could occur with no scenery? No doors.. it seemed like some sort of play/movie hybrid but after a shortwhile all those things faded away until I realized how much I would have missed if I had turned it off - it is now one of my favourite movies of all time.

Why? It is so brave to criticse humanity like this and admit just how 'dark' a race we truly are - not matter how much each of us profess to being 'good', we all know that most of us are anything but. Through this movie you see a woman who learns the cold harsh truth in a place where she expected to find the goodness that her faith told her existed. And then on not finding it, discovered that even within her lay a wrath that echoed the darkness that she herself wished did not feature so dominant in our race. And the biggest test of this is to observe your own emotions throughout this movie until what you feel at the end as perfect evidence...

I honestly believe those people that don't believe what this movie is expressing needs to take a cold hard look around them. And if they still don't believe, they are just like the people in this movie - unwilling to see the truth and coming up with excuses and reasons when nothing justifies the horrible world we live in.

A true masterpiece - one of the few pure pieces of art in cinema with amazing acting from Nicole Kidman especially, and the lack of a set causes you to be immersed in the characters like no other movie. And its 'them' and human nature that is the focus. Will leave you thinking and astounded (unless you don't like to think and can't watch a movie that isn't afraid to do something unique, in which case there a countless movies for 'you').