If one is looking for a starter to this heart-tearing masterpiece, I suggest My Dinner With Andre from 1981. Another movie from which you get a feeling of having read a good book. Very few films render that feeling, but these two do.
Where to start describing the bouquet of feelings this masterpiece has caused in me? A good point is admiration for Nicole Kidman's mix of wit, grace, innocence scented with beauty that, as the film evolves, turns into a thick film, a pellicle of suffering and enduring, glued together with forgiveness. I do not wish to believe that those qualities can be displayed credibly without the actress actually possessing them ( :) ? ) From the point Chuck takes advantage of Grace the first time, I couldn't stop occasional shivers the just-observed caused me, so much it touched. The conclusion can be drawn after watching the film: one cannot know his/her true nature unless given a real ungoverned power over another living being. They all seem nice in the beginning. The power and a sense of opportunity of free use only amplify themselves in Dogvillians. The evil seed in Chuck spreads among all the dogs, or were they all evil a priori?
Artificial settings? One stage? Please! They are forgotten in 10 minutes. As all true works of art, this thing glows from the inside, it doesn't need a vivid facade. Long movie? I would have liked to see maybe an even longer one, but it would have probably put me into even sadder mood watching the ugliness killing the grace.
Indeed, Tom, a great illustration of the fact that humans haven't changed from the medieval or perhaps even more primitive times - still dismissing the truth about themselves as lies, the truth that only very few of them are unselfish, decent in terms of morale and even 1 cm away from the animal desires for flesh.
Grace concludes that she wouldn't have been much better had she been born in Dogville. I disagree - one can be no matter how poor but still cultured, at list on a microlevel of one person, on a macroscale culture of course doesn't develop without having material funds at its foundation. Then a human raises his head from a plug and looks up in the sky, and connects with Love, and then the decency is born in him/her as a little fire that can't be put out by any amount of torture inflicted upon her/him. The decency can also be transferred from a parent to a child.
Dogville got what it deserved, in the end, justice comes in and flushes the inner hollowness created by co-suffering with Grace, heals the pain.
Thank you, Lars, and thank you, Nicole, this work is engraved into my mind for a lifetime.
Where to start describing the bouquet of feelings this masterpiece has caused in me? A good point is admiration for Nicole Kidman's mix of wit, grace, innocence scented with beauty that, as the film evolves, turns into a thick film, a pellicle of suffering and enduring, glued together with forgiveness. I do not wish to believe that those qualities can be displayed credibly without the actress actually possessing them ( :) ? ) From the point Chuck takes advantage of Grace the first time, I couldn't stop occasional shivers the just-observed caused me, so much it touched. The conclusion can be drawn after watching the film: one cannot know his/her true nature unless given a real ungoverned power over another living being. They all seem nice in the beginning. The power and a sense of opportunity of free use only amplify themselves in Dogvillians. The evil seed in Chuck spreads among all the dogs, or were they all evil a priori?
Artificial settings? One stage? Please! They are forgotten in 10 minutes. As all true works of art, this thing glows from the inside, it doesn't need a vivid facade. Long movie? I would have liked to see maybe an even longer one, but it would have probably put me into even sadder mood watching the ugliness killing the grace.
Indeed, Tom, a great illustration of the fact that humans haven't changed from the medieval or perhaps even more primitive times - still dismissing the truth about themselves as lies, the truth that only very few of them are unselfish, decent in terms of morale and even 1 cm away from the animal desires for flesh.
Grace concludes that she wouldn't have been much better had she been born in Dogville. I disagree - one can be no matter how poor but still cultured, at list on a microlevel of one person, on a macroscale culture of course doesn't develop without having material funds at its foundation. Then a human raises his head from a plug and looks up in the sky, and connects with Love, and then the decency is born in him/her as a little fire that can't be put out by any amount of torture inflicted upon her/him. The decency can also be transferred from a parent to a child.
Dogville got what it deserved, in the end, justice comes in and flushes the inner hollowness created by co-suffering with Grace, heals the pain.
Thank you, Lars, and thank you, Nicole, this work is engraved into my mind for a lifetime.