I could only stomach about 10 minutes, so I give it the benefit of the doubt, two stars rather than one.

powerful. cold. dark. almost perfect. large themes presented in wise manner. Nicole Kidman does a splendid job and the option for theater scene is the most inspired. story about people, fears, feelings, sins and weakness, ambiguity of danger and pragmatic answers to it, it has the rare gift to remind the tradition of Old Greek tragedy. and that is the axis for its strange beauty. and the exploration of the others is the key for its profound dramatic. film of the silence, the dialogs are only shadows of it, it has the the science to use old truths for a profound, bitter confession about a woman, a community, decisions and desires, punishment and illusion.

Lars Von Trier is one of my favorite directors of all time, so I went into this film expecting to like it, but I was not expecting this film to be (arguably) his best. Like all of his other films, Dogville was very dividing among critics and audiences (even though it is one of his better received). Some praised it for being groundbreaking and innovative with its minimalist approach to set design, and deeply emotional and moving with its incredibly human characters, while others criticized it for being tedious, melodramatic, pessimistic, and of course the classic Von Trier criticism, pretentious. That word gets thrown around a lot, pretentious, and rarely do people even know what it means, it means adding greater meaning or importance to something then is actually possessed. And believe me Dogville never tries to be more important than it actually is. But what is Dogville about? Well if you somehow didn't already know and are reading this review I'll give a brief summary, Dogville is about a very small town up in the Rocky Mountains, that doesn't receive any visitors and is essentially shut off from the rest of the world (minus a radio and a telephone). In this small town a strange girl appears one night seeking shelter from some strange men that are after her, after the town reluctantly accepts her, she pays them back by doing small things around town that, as the film says, don't really need to be done. The film then explores the nature of how a community functions, moral convictions, Justice, and punishment. As the heroine tries to live her life in the small town of Dogville. Nicole Kidman plays the heroine, Grace Margaret Mulligan, with a performance that is able to rival björk in dancer in the dark, or Emily Watson in breaking the Waves. But she is not the only great performance in the film, all of the supporting roles, even minor characters are noteworthy, and it is basically impossible to talk about Dogville and not talk about the set design, I hinted at it earlier, but the really is nothing like it. There is only one set in the whole film and that is the town and that is just a big empty space with chalk borders drawn on the floor and a few props her and there, of course in the reality of the film it is a real town, but to us the audience we see everything wide open we are entering their small world, just like Nicole Kidman.9.3/10

Dogville depicts the happenings of a humble little American town, of the same name, when a troubled newcomer stumbles into town and begins to stir its residents out of their comfort zone. It is the first movie in director Lars Von Trier's USA: Land of Opportunities series that follows a woman named Grace, portrayed here by Nicole Kidman, as she moves through America experiencing its history and culture. Here, she has somewhat of a backwards Cinderella story as Von Trier strips the idea of a small American town down to its bare essentials.The entire film takes place in a black box on a sound stage where the buildings and locations of the town are outlined in chalk on the floor, like a life size map with minimal props around to sell the idea that this is where these citizens live. It's strange for a fully fledged film, but it doesn't take long to get used to, as the story and characters are enticing enough to fill in the gaps for a suspension of belief. Before long, you won't even notice that walls don't hide anything from anyone and the mine at the edge of town isn't just a series of wooden arches.With a background that is mostly black, the cinematography is pretty limited to a few interesting lighting effects and pulling focus to the actors at hand. It seems that it would be very fun and freeing for an actor to be able to work with an ensemble cast on a project like this. The ensemble is so filled with great actors that there are too many to name them all, but the chemistry among them is smooth, fitting them together like pieces of a complete puzzle. They all get their moments to shine within the stories that intertwine these households together.Dogville is somehow a convincing combination of several mediums, film, the stage and prose, that could have gone horribly wrong. All three of these mediums have different ways of telling the same story that need to be taken into account when adapting from one to the other, but here, they all work separately and simultaneously together without becoming a jumbled mess. This is like a filmed production of a stage show playing out the actions read from a novel, with John Hurts as the voice of God narrating the actions, thoughts, backgrounds and feelings of all of the characters, which sounds a bit much but actually ends up being simple and lovely.Though it does still tread that balance of realism and fantasy, this is very different for a film from Lars Von Trier. It is much less involved and simple, in a way, but that lends itself to how Von Trier may be perceiving America, a place the director hasn't really experienced first hand, and it's people who have long been critically harsh and at odds with him. Even still, Dogville manages to be yet another bitter and thought provoking look at life and the struggles we experience.