‘Dogville’ explores man’s inhumanity

Lars Von Trier is … strange.

His 2000 film “Dancer in the Dark,” starring the incomparable – and equally strange – Bjork, proved that. As did 1998’s “The Idiots,” 1997’s “The Kingdom” and 1996’s “Breaking the Waves.”

But one of the strangest Von Trier films of all is last year’s “Dogville,” which never received a wide U.S. release. Though now on video store shelves, it certainly never played in Spokane-area theaters.

What do you expect? Shot as an “Our Town” kind of stage play, with a stage manager-type narrator (John Hurt) taking us through a prologue and nine chapters, “Dogville” – all two hours and 57 minutes of it – offers one of the darkest views of humankind since Vlad Dracul walked the Earth.

Only there’s no Bram Stokerish- type escapism here.

In his previous films, Von Trier – the Danish-born co-creator of the Dogma style of filmmaking (hand-held cameras, natural lighting, etc.) – has explored various facets of humanity’s uglier face. He’s looked at religious-like obsession, at corruption of innocence, at the complex interplay of emotions and intentions that result in damaged lives creeping along, barely ahead of ultimate ruin. And so on.

In “Dogville,” Von Trier uses the character of Grace (Nicole Kidman, more alluring than ever) to show how savagery and sadism lie just under the surface of even the most pleasant façade.

Stumbling into the village of Dogville moments after gunshots have sounded mysteriously in the distance, Grace meets Tom Edison Jr. (Paul Bettany), who immediately offers her asylum. All he has to do, he tells her, is just make sure that the other 14 adults in the town agree.

They do, though not all as willingly as Tom. So, eager to please, Grace works her way into Dogville community life, offering to help each family in any way she can.

She ingratiates herself as the companion of the man-who-refuses- to-admit-that-he-is-blind (Ben Gazzara), the childsitter of the mother-who-wants-to-improve-her- mind (Patricia Clarkson), the apple- picking assistant to the man-who- fled-to-Dogville-to-escape-the-lure- of-the-big-city (Stellan Skarsgaard). And to the others (played by Lauren Bacall, Philip Baker Hall, Jeremy Davies, etc.), she serves in ways particular to each.

As time goes on, though, no good deed of Grace’s goes unpunished. Little by little, and then a little more, the town turns against her.

Spoiler alert (read on at your own risk): Two things occur. As the town gradually begins to depend on Grace, the residents begin to develop expectations of her. And as the sheriff of nearby Georgetown drops in to post ever-more dire wanted posters for a woman-whom-we- know-is-Grace, the residents come to think that Grace should be more grateful to them for taking chances on her behalf.

And so, naturally enough, they expect her to work harder, for less pay. Yet even as their demands become ever more outrageous, Grace is happy to do what she can because, as she tells Tom, she is grateful to the townsfolk for having taken her in, for having given her a refuge against a threat that only she truly understands.

And Von Trier spares her, and us, nothing in showing the slow de-evolution of the arrangement. Grace becomes a slave, sexually used by the men (though not by the spineless, impotent Tom) and alternately spurned and tormented by the women.

How does Von Trier resolve matters? Let’s just say that when Grace has a debate with the dangerous-man-who-has-been- looking-for-her (James Caan), not only does she lose the argument but she loses heart. And Von Trier’s vision, such as it is, becomes complete.

Humanity isn’t necessarily evil, at least not in the obvious ways that we’ve come to define that word-so- hot-that-it-has-lost-all- meaning, Von Trier seems to be saying. Even so, we humans clearly are capable of acts so evil that the very horror of their depth can, and often are, disguised by the mundane nature of the situations from which they arise.

Furthermore, each of these unspeakable acts can be rationalized easily by those who commit them. The harder the residents of Dogville work at denying the evil that lurks within their hearts, the easier it is to victimize Grace. If the evil isn’t in them, then it must be in Grace, and so she deserves to be punished.

On second thought, then, maybe Von Trier isn’t all that strange. Far from being unusual, the phenomenon that “Dogville” probes is actually universal. It occurs, as Thornton Wilder knew as well, even in “Our Town.”

Maybe, Von Trier adds, especially in our town.