Review of Dogville (2003) by Citizen J — 18 Jul 2010

Dogville is brilliant. I can not imagine another adjective to define this latest work of Danish director Lars von Trier, who we had already presented with works such as Dancing In The Dark and Breaking the Waves. One of the founders of the Dogma 95 manifesto, along with Thomas Vinterberg, in which a set of rules determine the creation of a film - the non-use of scenarios, use of natural sound, use the camera in your hand without any kind of support among other paradigms - Trier totally subverted its own formula (well say that he never followed it faithfully) to establish that this is the best movie of his career: all the action occurs on a large dais, where the scenarios are not there (stripes are only chalk determining the scenario, and only a few scenery objects on the ground), the lighting is totally artificial, even there is even a cinematographer - Anthony Dod Mantle - credited. The film went on to compete at Cannes last year (it was a big favorite), but was not taking any prize.

The director's intention is to create a trilogy about America, starting with this first part. The next is already in post-production and is called Manderlay. Interestingly, the director never visited the country allegedly "honored" - he is usually called anti-American films and never came to fruition in Yankee land. Finding your story in a small village in the Rockies - Dogville - during the depression occurred after the fall of the stock exchange in New York in 1929, the film focuses on Grace (the beautiful, talented and beautiful Nicole Kidman, who increasingly more evidence to be the big star of the day, even working hard and not maintaining a standard of quality in his films), a frightened girl who comes to town fleeing gangsters.

It is collected and assisted by Tomas Edison Jr. (the always excellent Paul Bettany Dr. Stephen Maturin in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World) and both end up having a troubled relationship. Grace, incidentally, ends up being discovered by all the inhabitants of the place and ends up staying put to a vote location. She gets permission to stay, provided they spend to provide services to all inhabitants, and is eventually put in a kind of slavery. Obviously, this thin line that moves Grace ends up breaking and the outcome is tragic. With an extremely well developed screenplay, written by Lars von Trier himself, the film gives the banks to various types of interpretation and not allowed to leave to make even a scathing critique of American society. And he goes further: it can analyze, appropriately, human behavior, psychologists and sociologists leaving troubled by his dreams subliminal.

The great and fantastic supporting cast is another asset, but which eventually becomes the major setback of the film. Except for Paul Bettany and the great Patricia Clarkson (who was spotted last year when he was nominated for supporting actor for The Way It Is), it is impossible not to resent the evil exploitation of the great Lauren Bacall, for example. And look what the movie is James Caan, Jeremy Davies (louquinho of the Hotel One Million Dollars), Philip Baker Hall, Chloe Sevigny and Stellan Skarsgard. Not failing to remember that the film is narrated by John Hurt.

Von Trier is a great marketer and may have a legion of haters as big as his fan club, but can, every completed project, a major feat: to keep our minds occupied for a long time after the rise in end credits .