Looping the Hen

Foxy in Dogville

I went through several emotional stages as I watched this frustrating, if entrancing, film. Dogville stars Nicole Kidman as the beautiful Grace, a woman on the run from both the mob and police in depression era Colorado. She makes her way to the near-invisible town of Dogville, a picturesque community nestled in the Rocky Mountains. Immediately she meets Tom, played by the ever-delightful Paul Bettany. He is the resident philosopher and self-proclaimed moral guide of the community; he empathizes with her dilemma and offers her sanctuary pending a town meeting of the 16 resident adults. They give her two weeks to earn her keep and find a place.

The movie is basically a filmed play; sparse scenery consisting of several house frames, a window, a bell tower. In most scenes you can see through to other parts of the town, and what others are doing. At first it was distracting, but the quality of the acting and the focus on the characters quickly envelopes you.

The 2nd chapter lulls you into a sense of security as Grace befriends the town. She becomes well-liked and her job quickly becomes to visit each party in Dogville every day and attend to their various needs. She helps teach a family with 7 children, a handicapped woman with getting around the house while her mother was out, and in the orchard with a rough apple-picker. In the beginning It does not seem much of an imposition, as each family barely scrapes by themselves, and there is not much else Grace has to offer them.

Chapter 3 quickly disabuses the notion of an easy little family film. After the police and mob both show up in Dogville looking for Grace, the townsfolk determine she needs to do more to maintain their protection. Her work schedule is doubled, and contrasting nicely with the easy cinematic flow of her day in chapter 2, chapter 3 is a frenetic jumble of exhausting hours and the beginning of her exploitation by the now not-so-pleasant townsfolk.

Grace's situation rapidly degrades until she is first raped in chapter 6, is bound in chains in chapter 7, and becomes nothing more than an animal. As the story progresses toward its conclusion, she is regularly abused during her working hours and then raped by each of the men in town at night.

At various points in the film I didn't know how to feel; it invoked viciousness toward the townsfolk, and frustration at Grace's passivity. She refused to judge them, even after their vileness bubbled up from below their simple country mannerisms. Were I Grace, I hope I would have gone on a hunger strike, or killed myself, or jumped off the mountain. Every day, Grace simply endured; it was in some moments horrifying.

It didn't help that the movie was just under 3 hours long; still, I stayed up long past my bedtime, convinced that I was witnessing some director's disgusting vision of moral relativism gone wild and an incomprehensible defense of the indefensible. (Unlike many of the folks in Hollywood, some of us redneck folks still believe in right and wrong.)

I won't give away the ending except to say that it involves a sometimes incoherent conversation between Kidman and mobster James Caan. This was perhaps the lowpoint of the movie, if only in that it took a tortuous 3 hours to get there, and I had hoped for a little more.

Still, the finale works well and I went to bed surprised that I could still be surprised by Hollywood. Overall I would give it 4 out of 5 stars, but it is definitely a 'love it or hate it' film.