Dogville

Denmark, Sweden, 2003

Drama, History, Avant-Garde

Synopsis

The beautiful fugitive Grace arrives in the small town of Dogville on the run from the mob. With encouragement from Tom, the town spokesman, the community agrees to hide her and in return, Grace agrees to work for them. However, goodness is relative, and Grace has a dangerous secret.

Our take

One part Brechtian experiment, and one part send up of America, Lars von Trier imported English language stars (including Nicole Kidman) and staged a 1930s gangsters’ tale in a studio stripped of all realism but blistered with turmoil. You’ve never seen anything like this!

Dogville Directed by Lars von Trier

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Awards & Festivals

Cannes Film Festival

2003 | Winner: Palm Dog

2003 | Nominee: Palme d'Or

Sundance Film Festival

2004

Toronto International Film Festival

2003

Telluride Film Festival

2003

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Cast & Crew

Critics reviews

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This complex relationship of the conditional and unconditional suggests that there is never a choice between modes of hospitality or forgiveness, that there is always a constant tension and negotiation between the two collapsible poles. If this is the case, is Grace’s continual forgiveness truly unconditional? Could not Grace’s infinite forgiveness of Dogville’s conditional hospitality… also be considered a form of thematizing violence?

Adam Atkinson

July 22, 2005

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Say what you will about Lars von Trier—I won’t deny that he can be an obnoxious self-promoter, and at times…, a bad director—but he absolutely does not unthinkingly mimic the hand-me-downs of artistic expression. Does this automatically ascend von Trier to the realm of political filmmaking? I still don’t think so—there’s too much shock-the-bourgeoisie silliness remaining in his creative instincts—but it does make him capable of producing some brilliant social commentary.

Michael Joshua Rowin

April 12, 2004

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Von Trier’s elegantly angry Dogville, despite its predilection for audience-goosing, is an exhilarating pilgrimage into Darkest Human Nature: as emotionally exacting as we’ve come to expect from the director, and as primally insinuating as well. As a technical exercise, it’s unimpeachable; each camera set-up, each metaphysical visual layer, each situational theater gambit validates the artform.

Michael Koresky

October 03, 2003

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What are people saying?

Ma-rewind's rating of the film Dogville
Ma-rewind

A mes yeux, le meilleur film de Lars Von Trier.
September 11, 2016 08:43
- 2
- 1
DanOffen's rating of the film Dogville
DanOffen

I thought this was brilliant. I wanted to hate it because of it's up front artiness but I was totally gripped throughout. Going to stay with me for a while. So upfront, clear and raw. It's a very refreshing film but brutal.
April 26, 2020 03:19
- 9
- 0
Liam Grieves's rating of the film Dogville
Liam Grieves

One of the best scripts ever written for the cinema.
May 05, 2020 19:56
- 11
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Rainn Holiday's rating of the film Dogville
Rainn Holiday

There were so many things that I loved and hated about this movie. The fact that I could feel both, simultaneously, says just how good this movie really is.
April 26, 2020 03:19
- 16
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Caden Cotard's rating of the film Dogville
Caden Cotard

One of the most beautiful and disturbing indictments of Americana, and it's from a Dane. Whomever it came from, it's one of the most important films of last decade. And it has Nicole Kidman's best performance, so there's that.
August 10, 2019 07:13
- 7
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Duncan Gray's rating of the film Dogville
Duncan Gray

My impression of LVT is that he's a clever conceptualist and empty provocateur, inventing new styles and using them to say nothing at all of value. But unlike Dancer or Melancholia, Dogville gripped me. Maybe the writing's better or the ideas are richer. Yes, it's a smug, borderline hateful vision of the US from a cinematic manipulator who's never been here. But this time, color me provoked. Or at least manipulated.
June 16, 2019 21:58
- 10
- 1
tidal waif's rating of the film Dogville
tidal waif

For some reason, mubi pulls up films I've seen in the Ice Age close to my recent watches and i have no idea why. I don’t like this film. In Musil’s Young Torless book, a boy is caught stealing and has to go through a series of degrading experiences to redeem his misconduct, afraid he might otherwise be expelled from school. He accepts. He honestly thinks that at the end of the willingly undergone debasement, he will
January 24, 2019 16:58
- 7
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El Biffo's rating of the film Dogville
El Biffo

What an incredible cast! Nicole Kidman, Chloe Sevigny, Philip Baker Hall, Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzara, John Hurt, James Caan and Udo Kier!!!
November 27, 2019 11:03
- 8
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