Dogville 4K 2003 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Young Grace, having escaped from a gang of gangsters, finds salvation in the small town of Dogville somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. The locals - one more beautiful than the other - are willing to shelter her. And in return, they do not need anything at all, well, except to help around the house or watch the children. But gradually the lovely Dogville turns into a prison for the girl.

Review 4K Movie

In Dogville, Trier offers us simple Old Testament wisdom bordering on misanthropy (for it is from this film that his hatred of humanity begins): “The world deserves destruction for its sins.” We only understand how anti-American the film is in the credits, where Bowie's song plays over harsh photographs of poverty and hardship in this country of “great opportunities,” although throughout the film we increasingly realize that what we are seeing is not so much a portrait of bourgeois society as a view of humanity in general. The three hours of Dogville are quite uneven: it is important for the director to show the gradual degradation of the world from idyll to nightmare, which is why the first hour seems saccharine and sanctimonious (and throughout the film, Grace herself seems an overly positive character), and the third hour excessively cruel.

It is in Dogville that we should look for the origins of Melancholia, perhaps Trier's most misanthropic statement. Starting with a cultural reflection on Europe in the E trilogy, and especially in the film of the same name, the further Trier goes, the more he becomes disappointed in humanity. At the same time, Dogville is a subtle, step-by-step, deeply psychological (with a serious dive into the anatomy of human characters) study of human hypocrisy. The townspeople never stop justifying themselves, even for the most serious sins, trying to be polite and save face, while doing obvious evil. At the same time, the straightforward poster-like nature of the content contradicts the ascetic experimentalism of the form, which inherits Brecht's discoveries and brings to mind the early Fassbinder (especially Katzelmacher).

I have heard many different interpretations of Dogville in my life, the most original of which belongs to my philosophy teacher: he said that this world without walls and doors, where everything is visible, is analogous to Plato's world of things, the shadow of the real world. Another common interpretation is that Grace's final conversation with her father represents Trier's reflection on God as a judge who is merciless toward even the slightest injustice. Grace is supposedly analogous to Christ, trying to justify humanity with His suffering. These are very controversial opinions, because it turns out that, according to Trier, God is just a supreme gangster endowed with unlimited power. Nicole Kidman's rather clichéd performance (who, in my opinion, has only once managed to break out of her role as a sultry beauty—in Kubrick's last film, where she gives a truly brilliant performance) also prevents the viewer from immersing themselves in Grace's suffering.

As one cinephile friend of mine said:
“Unlike Emily Watson and Björk, she doesn't live in the circumstances presented, she just acts.” The truth of this opinion is all the more painful because, unlike Kidman, the supporting actors, especially Paul Bettany, did an extremely good job in the film (Bettany created the image of the most sophisticated hypocrite). In an attempt to dissect human psychology in detail, Trier invited actors who were famous in the past to play supporting roles: Harriet Andersson (Bergman's star), Lauren Bacall (the star of noir films), and Ben Gazzara (Cassavetes' star), and he did not make a single mistake in casting. However, Stellan Skarsgård is the most noticeable here, as always accurate in episodic details. Unlike his three previous works, Trier used professional lighting, makeup, and a certain theatricality to achieve a powerful suggestive effect, thanks to which the unpretentious simplicity of the message still hits the viewer over the head with its persuasiveness.

Dogville is one of those masterpieces that immediately upon release and much later raises many questions, the main one being whether it is worth making such a fuss over a simple and straightforward message that people are not worthy of living on earth. It seems to me that it was precisely misanthropy, which over time took up more and more space in Trier's personality, that caused his clinical depression and mental health problems, so that the further he went, the more he began to shoot films that were completely insane in their insanity (Antichrist, Nymphomaniac, The House That Jack Built). How a film like Melancholia found its way into this list remains to be seen. As for Dogville, as well as Dancer in the Dark, unlike Breaking the Waves, these are masterpieces, albeit with flaws, that is, very imperfect, but nevertheless very significant statements in the history of cinema.