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rmThis movie is about why people hate women.
And why they're afraid of them.
And why they're right.
You should probably go see it.
This is a film of many conceits, which it would be nearly hypocritical of me to criticize. But the fact is a hyper-real universe that is basically little more than someone who got overly ambitious with an Our Town set, doesn't do it for me, even if it did assist in making some points about our culture and our very odd notions of public and private within it.
People make a lot of noise about how von Trier must hate women. Afterall, look at his films, and look at what his actresses have to say about them. Dogville leaves me with the sneaking suspicion that von Trier doesn't exactly hate women. Rather, he hates himself for not being one, because if he were one he'd have more reasons to hate himself. And while that might be cheap pot-shot pop-psychology, I don't know what else to tell you about a film that opens with a woman being offered bread to eat and refusing to take it, because she must punish herself, because she stole a bone from a dog.
One of the key characters is a young, earnest romantic who's profession is writing, not that he has yet to write more than two words, the film informs us. When he turns out to be as wretched as anyone else in the film, I was unsurprised, but it was an added point of personal discomfort certainly.
At the end of the film, the credits roll abruptly to snapshots of the poor and homless, while David Bowie's Young Americans plays. There are plenty of things to indict America for, through art or not, but oh my god, so heavy handed and so simplistic. America cannot be summed up by big guns and mean dogs. It's not why we're often a bully nation. It's not why we don't listen culturally to the sounds outside our borders, and it is certainly far far far too basic an idea to be all "this is the roots of terrorism" as the notes on the film in the program suggest. Big dogs and guns, and our matter of fact not-quite-swagger about it, is only what makes us noticeably different, but it is neither particularly the symptom or the cause of America's problems on an individual or collective scale. That said, because it's a fun song, and the film and the credit images aren't, it will unhinge you at the end, because everything is just so so so so not okay.
I should also note that von Trier has never been to America, and has a reportedly nearly pathological issue with the idea. So while his view is interesting for it being formed only by what is heard and not seen or experienced, I am hard pressed to believe that a lack of research ever improves a piece.
Grace (Nicole Kidman's character) is _not_ someone you want to walk out of the theater identifying with. And because of an odd confluence of mostly minor circumstances I did. Which is hardly von Trier's fault, but I'm not feeling very forgiving at the moment.
I bitch a lot about von Trier's films. I think the whole Dogme thing needed to happen, but I also find the films essentially boring unwatchable and smug. His Medea reminded me that I'm far more interested in him as a visual artist, than as a film maker, and even then, it's not necessarily my ball of wax. This film leaves me still uncontrollably irritated with his existence (it was 177 minutes, and characters often repeated lines over and over -- and I couldn't tell you if that was because of an attempt to demonstrate the banality of American life, the artificialness of the film's setting, or just crappy scriptwriting on the part of a non-native English-speaking team -- but it drove me insane), but absolutely having to admit, he's an absolute damn genius.
And why they're afraid of them.
And why they're right.
You should probably go see it.
This is a film of many conceits, which it would be nearly hypocritical of me to criticize. But the fact is a hyper-real universe that is basically little more than someone who got overly ambitious with an Our Town set, doesn't do it for me, even if it did assist in making some points about our culture and our very odd notions of public and private within it.
People make a lot of noise about how von Trier must hate women. Afterall, look at his films, and look at what his actresses have to say about them. Dogville leaves me with the sneaking suspicion that von Trier doesn't exactly hate women. Rather, he hates himself for not being one, because if he were one he'd have more reasons to hate himself. And while that might be cheap pot-shot pop-psychology, I don't know what else to tell you about a film that opens with a woman being offered bread to eat and refusing to take it, because she must punish herself, because she stole a bone from a dog.
One of the key characters is a young, earnest romantic who's profession is writing, not that he has yet to write more than two words, the film informs us. When he turns out to be as wretched as anyone else in the film, I was unsurprised, but it was an added point of personal discomfort certainly.
At the end of the film, the credits roll abruptly to snapshots of the poor and homless, while David Bowie's Young Americans plays. There are plenty of things to indict America for, through art or not, but oh my god, so heavy handed and so simplistic. America cannot be summed up by big guns and mean dogs. It's not why we're often a bully nation. It's not why we don't listen culturally to the sounds outside our borders, and it is certainly far far far too basic an idea to be all "this is the roots of terrorism" as the notes on the film in the program suggest. Big dogs and guns, and our matter of fact not-quite-swagger about it, is only what makes us noticeably different, but it is neither particularly the symptom or the cause of America's problems on an individual or collective scale. That said, because it's a fun song, and the film and the credit images aren't, it will unhinge you at the end, because everything is just so so so so not okay.
I should also note that von Trier has never been to America, and has a reportedly nearly pathological issue with the idea. So while his view is interesting for it being formed only by what is heard and not seen or experienced, I am hard pressed to believe that a lack of research ever improves a piece.
Grace (Nicole Kidman's character) is _not_ someone you want to walk out of the theater identifying with. And because of an odd confluence of mostly minor circumstances I did. Which is hardly von Trier's fault, but I'm not feeling very forgiving at the moment.
I bitch a lot about von Trier's films. I think the whole Dogme thing needed to happen, but I also find the films essentially boring unwatchable and smug. His Medea reminded me that I'm far more interested in him as a visual artist, than as a film maker, and even then, it's not necessarily my ball of wax. This film leaves me still uncontrollably irritated with his existence (it was 177 minutes, and characters often repeated lines over and over -- and I couldn't tell you if that was because of an attempt to demonstrate the banality of American life, the artificialness of the film's setting, or just crappy scriptwriting on the part of a non-native English-speaking team -- but it drove me insane), but absolutely having to admit, he's an absolute damn genius.
