Dogville

[Still in editing stage]

Much as his 2000 film Dancer in the Dark used the intersection of the American film musical and maternal melodrama film genres to form a commentary on working America, so Dogville mixes a variety of styles, genres, and references to again comment on America and, this time, its relationship to poverty and the poor.

One of the most obvious references of this film, made through the minimalist sets, is to Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town." What this brings to the film is the sense that it is operating as a counter to that play's portrayal of the quintissential American town - Dogville opposed to Grover's Corners. Whereas "Our Town," through Emily, works to reveal the need to appreciate life as it happens since life will not last, Dogville reveals, through Grace, that the mere enjoyment of life has its limits. While Emily comes to realize after her death that the living do not get life, Grace comes to realize that the realities of life often overcome it's appreciation. Throughout the film, Grace submits to the charms of Dogville and its residents out of, first, an enjoyment of the experience of living that life in the mountains. When it all comes apart - after the initial rape and the smashing of her figurines - she continues to submit to Dogville out of a feeling of obligation to the kindness they once showed her. She remains willing to forgive them for everything out of an understanding of the risk they think they are taking.

The second reference that struck me through the film was its connections to the "Runaway Bride" version of screwball comedy from the 1930s typified by It Happened One Night. In terms of a general plot, Dogville and Happened share a number of similarities. They both concern a wealthy woman running away from the responsibilites and obligations of her class - marriage or ascencion to power. In both films the women meets with and is taken in by a man who is out of work, poor, and at odds with those who are his immediate superiors - an editor or the town. Both men see the woman as a way back into the graces of those above him, a way of showing his talent and, by extension, his necessity to those above him. Ultimately, in each, the woman learns something from the man about the American spirit and he learns from her about love.

In the specifics, however, Dogville rewrites the uplifting Capra film into a scathing critique of or perhaps revelation about American poverty. Here, Von Trier uses to scaffolding of the screwball comedy to write an exceedingly dark film that reveals the lengths of exploitation that individuals will go to when they occupy power. While Happened toys with the idea, and dismisses it, through the "Walls of Jericho" and threats to the travelling salesman, Dogville plays them out and pulls the walls down and makes good on the threats. The implication here being that this is what "real" people would be more inclined to do.