Dogville is man's best friend

Lately, too many movies have been content with the addition of style and glitz for no reason, shredding whatever plot there is and leaving the actors to pretend they're getting paid to do a job. The reason it is easy for these movies to succeed that is when you give a mediocre movie a glitzy locale, pretty faces and slick editing, the audience leaves the theater feeling that it had to be good. After all, the amount of work put into it must have meant something.

The principles that guided the production of Dogville couldn't have been farther from this formula. The entire movie takes place on a soundstage where the buildings are drawn in labeled chalk outlines and everything from opening doors to drawing curtains is mimed. Even the blueberry bushes and town dog are reduced to a white, scrawled line. It's an exercise in claustrophobia in which director Lars von Trier forces you focus on what the camera is framing. The hand-held camera movements are restless and anxious, the color is grainy and the theatrical lighting adds an intimate touch to the movie. This, coupled with the ominous-sounding narrator who suddenly cuts in with his voiceovers, forces the viewer to pay attention to the actors and forbids distraction.

Lars von Trier has made a name for himself with his cinematic daring, but the movie belongs to Nicole Kidman. Between Dogville and Cold Mountain, it seems almost laughable that the latter would be the one to pump up Kidman's name. Maybe the movie's underlying echo against American capitalism touched a few raw nerves. Regardless of the message, she embodies the character as a beautiful and fragile woman whose eyes betray the cold truth she is hiding.

Dogville is set in a small lonely Colorado town upon a hill, with only one entrance: a small winding road up to the town. The movie opens with gunshots heard in the distance and soon we meet Grace (Kidman) running away from a group of gangsters in hot pursuit. Tom Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany), the town's local writer and philosopher, is charmed by her gorgeous looks and decides to provide shelter. Always trying to do the right thing, he proposes that it is only fitting that Grace do some sort of favor for the townspeople.

Grace, who has never so much as brushed the fur coat she is wearing, readily agrees, and after some reluctance from townsfolk, they find work for her. Every morning she wakes and works alongside Liz Henson (Chlo' Sevigny) in a shop, helps Tom Edison Sr. (Philip Baker Hall) with his medicines, baby-sits for Vera's (Patricia Clarkson) perpetually ill daughter and rounds off her evening with Chuck (Stellan Skaarsg??rd) in the apple orchard. Everything seems to be working just as Tom Jr. hoped it would and Grace seems to be slowly cozying up to him.

But things go awry in the second half of the movie, as Kidman's character goes from town darling to prisoner and slave. This second act of the movie quickly changes gears and defines Lars von Trier's talent. The latter half of the movie paints Grace's fall from her role of the adored visitor, as they fix chains to her legs and make her the victim of rape by the town husbands. As Grace tries to help the people who once welcomed her, like the Blind Man (Ben Gazzano), they reward her with abuse.

There are a couple of storylines that are executed masterfully and that lingered long after I watched the movie. One involves tiny figurines that Grace bought, which are smashed one by one by Skaarsg??rd's wife in a fit of rage. She promises to break one for every tear that Grace sheds. When the film deals with the consequences of this act at the end, the resolution is as chilling as it is satisfying. Another scene is shown by a long and extended overhead shot that shows Kidman lying on the back of a truck. The truck is covered by a rug but we see Grace in a montage of motions through a translucent visual effect. When the scene finally ends, as the camera pans out and the narrator's voice startles you, there are few better reasons to love this movie.

A pared-down movie like Dogville depends heavily on its actors. Tom and Grace's relationship transcends the usual Hollywood guy-meets-girl straightjacket and there is a sense of oncoming implosion around the corner. The ending never deceives the movie or the audience, as, once everything is revealed, there is only a matter of getting it over with.

It is possible to watch Dogville and think of Lars von Trier's social critique of American culture as tangential. The film has been criticized as depicting Americans as violent, aggressive and lawless. The final scene shows still photos of Americans practicing various acts of war-related violence to the soundtrack of David Bowie's "Young Americans". But Dogville for me is a movie about filmmaking. Instead of scripting a plot and throwing in a few characters, it puts the people together in a room (quite literally) and lets the situations play out from there. There is a story -- and a good one at that -- but multiple scenes are strung together on tone and feel, not monotonous style. I can now go back to watching Taking Lives and Mindhunters knowing that not all is lost with movies.