Dogville (2003)

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Originally Posted by Piddzilla
So, what about the film is anti-american?
I HAVE TO watch this again, it was un American?
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I am having a nervous breakdance
Originally Posted by nebbit
I HAVE TO watch this again, it was un American?
No, une Americane!
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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but
now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.



chicagofrog's Avatar
history *is* moralizing
funny you!
(une AméricAIne...)
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It's anti-humanity. At least, anti-human nature. Doesn't put any restrictions as far as time or place on that, we as people on this planet are capable of some wicked ***** that we justify for all sorts of reasons...and none of them adequate justifications either.
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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra



Looking at Dogville as a whole, I think we can all agree it's pretty damn anti. But as I watched the film for the third time, I looked at all the little things.

When the town is asked to give Grace a two week "trial", it's Olivia who stands up and says, "Well, if Master Tom thinks this is right for us, and for the community, then that'll do for me. He might be young but his heart is right, and I've known his heart for as long as it's been beating." No other words are spoken at the meeting. That's how the township agreed to Grace's two week stay, through Olivia. Did anyone else find this interesting?
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You're a Genius all the time
I liked Dogville just fine. It's the least of the von Trier films I've seen, but still a powerful experience. And I don't really get how so many of you can watch this film to the end and still insist it doesn't harbor a strong anti-American sentiment. I don't necessarily think that the anti-US message works to the film's detriment and it's certainly not the point, but it's there alright.

Just curious, has anyone seen the 2:15 cut? It's hard to imagine this film working with upwards of forty minutes sliced from it, but someone recently told me they've seen both versions and much prefer the shorter one. So... anyone here seen it?



Just saw this last night. I agree with Swedish: I'm not sure how someone can play down the anti-Americanism. It's not just the choice of music and the images over the credits, but von Trier has called this the first film in his "USA - Land of Opportunities" trilogy. It's really blatant, and I think it's disingenuous to say it's really about humanity as a whole.

As a film I guess it's fairly impressive. I like the soundstage conceit plenty (though wish it had been utilized a bit more creatively; I expected a lot more clever irony based around it than there ended up being) and it's well-acted, and as Holden says the dialogue with Caan at the end is quite good (partially because it doesn't sound like movie dialogue much). But the anti-Americanism is incredibly clumsy. It's not a matter of it being extreme or a caricature--I've come to expect that from supposed skewerings of my country by self-important filmmakers--it's that it's just downright confused, at least insofar as it's supposed to be about America at all.

Even taken purely as a statement about the evils humanity is capable of, I don't find it terribly convincing. Grace doesn't plead her case and while some of the evils that befall her feel plausible and natural, some just feel completely out of left field. The whole idea of making a statement about what ordinary people are capable of is to make us believe it, to show it happening gradually before our very eyes, but there are too many "jumps" in the characters' moral degradation here.