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katsarisWent and saw "Dogville" yesterday.
Eww. What an absolute celebration of ugliness for ugliness' sake. A cynical horrible view on humanity as a whole, in my opinion -- probably one of the darkest films I've ever seen. Unlovely.
And yet bizarrely enough, I can also recommend it -- if you can stomach a vision of humanity that most people would, I think, find too utterly dark to be believable.
See it if you will, but from some point on it just didn't seem believable anymore to me that so many random individuals would be so vile for such little reason. Some of the events (the initial rape, the figurines incident) they are believable enough... but for me my disbelief first arose when Grace was forced to work double as hard for half the wages -- and that disbelief never ebbed away since that time.
And by the time she's held as a virtual slave to be used and abused at will -- no, no, no, I just can't see how a community that would do that to a person they had *already* accepted, wouldn't have *already* torn itself apart through murder, abuse, and rape -- long before Grace had come along.
And though the movie seems somewhere to refer to this as the *worst* town in the world... in other places it seems that it's meant to represent all rural life, the same way that it seems as if the mobsters represent all city life. Being equally vile, that is, and thus condemning humanity as a whole. Ugh.
The movie was salvaged *somewhat* by its end, I felt, where it all seems to transform into a Christ allegory where the sacrificial lamb, Grace, gets the power and authority from her Father to punish the people that "crucified" her. So to speak.
Which is what you expect and wish for, really, long before the movie's end, to see the city burn into ashes, its inhabitants killed. But I also kinda wished for atleast *someone* (NOT Tom, who had betrayed himself as vile and cowardly from very early one) to manage to escape the city's destruction alongside Grace. Thus atleast providing some measure of light to shine against the darkness.
I don't consider myself a Christian, but I do know that Christ is supposed to save atleast *some* people. Christianity would have never caught on otherwise. :-)
Anyway, not to be. I could perhaps stomach even the children's death, but when even the baby gets killed in Grace's revenge, there's no longer any claim of moral superiority by even her. So all is equally flat and equally vile -- ending up with nothingness.
"It's got to be universal" the writer tells us -- but it's not. The ending themes contradict each other, I felt. Is this simply the vilest city in the world that gets burned into ashes, are the inhabitants responsible for their fate? If so the message is not universal, just a random set of evil individuals getting whacked. Or does "oppression" and "poverty" explain the crimes? But Grace only decides her revenge with the realization that no it doesn't explain them by itself.
This is probably one of the films that desperately tries to stick with you, and it probably *does* stick with you, even if because of the extremity of all the situations depicted -- and the way used to depict them ofcourse.
But is it a *good* movie? Not in my opinion.
Sidenote:
I can't help but wonder how it would have been if the religious allegory had been more a straightforward part of the story rather than just an allegory to be noticed or not... What if the movie had been a movie about Satan (in the form of Tom) manipulating the lives of the city and of Grace as part of yet another bet (like the story of Job) to see whether he can break this most holy and compassionate of human beings into lashing out indiscriminately against the entire world. Her last final vengeance, where she indeed lashes out against everyone, would ofcourse come as Satan's victory, to be perhaps nulled (or not, interpretations may differ) when she chooses to spare the dog.
Ah, well. My point remains: this movie has too cynical and dark view of humanity for my tastes. People indeed can descend into monsters but they can also rise into angels. Seeing only the former is the *easy* way to go.
Eww. What an absolute celebration of ugliness for ugliness' sake. A cynical horrible view on humanity as a whole, in my opinion -- probably one of the darkest films I've ever seen. Unlovely.
And yet bizarrely enough, I can also recommend it -- if you can stomach a vision of humanity that most people would, I think, find too utterly dark to be believable.
See it if you will, but from some point on it just didn't seem believable anymore to me that so many random individuals would be so vile for such little reason. Some of the events (the initial rape, the figurines incident) they are believable enough... but for me my disbelief first arose when Grace was forced to work double as hard for half the wages -- and that disbelief never ebbed away since that time.
And by the time she's held as a virtual slave to be used and abused at will -- no, no, no, I just can't see how a community that would do that to a person they had *already* accepted, wouldn't have *already* torn itself apart through murder, abuse, and rape -- long before Grace had come along.
And though the movie seems somewhere to refer to this as the *worst* town in the world... in other places it seems that it's meant to represent all rural life, the same way that it seems as if the mobsters represent all city life. Being equally vile, that is, and thus condemning humanity as a whole. Ugh.
The movie was salvaged *somewhat* by its end, I felt, where it all seems to transform into a Christ allegory where the sacrificial lamb, Grace, gets the power and authority from her Father to punish the people that "crucified" her. So to speak.
Which is what you expect and wish for, really, long before the movie's end, to see the city burn into ashes, its inhabitants killed. But I also kinda wished for atleast *someone* (NOT Tom, who had betrayed himself as vile and cowardly from very early one) to manage to escape the city's destruction alongside Grace. Thus atleast providing some measure of light to shine against the darkness.
I don't consider myself a Christian, but I do know that Christ is supposed to save atleast *some* people. Christianity would have never caught on otherwise. :-)
Anyway, not to be. I could perhaps stomach even the children's death, but when even the baby gets killed in Grace's revenge, there's no longer any claim of moral superiority by even her. So all is equally flat and equally vile -- ending up with nothingness.
"It's got to be universal" the writer tells us -- but it's not. The ending themes contradict each other, I felt. Is this simply the vilest city in the world that gets burned into ashes, are the inhabitants responsible for their fate? If so the message is not universal, just a random set of evil individuals getting whacked. Or does "oppression" and "poverty" explain the crimes? But Grace only decides her revenge with the realization that no it doesn't explain them by itself.
This is probably one of the films that desperately tries to stick with you, and it probably *does* stick with you, even if because of the extremity of all the situations depicted -- and the way used to depict them ofcourse.
But is it a *good* movie? Not in my opinion.
Sidenote:
I can't help but wonder how it would have been if the religious allegory had been more a straightforward part of the story rather than just an allegory to be noticed or not... What if the movie had been a movie about Satan (in the form of Tom) manipulating the lives of the city and of Grace as part of yet another bet (like the story of Job) to see whether he can break this most holy and compassionate of human beings into lashing out indiscriminately against the entire world. Her last final vengeance, where she indeed lashes out against everyone, would ofcourse come as Satan's victory, to be perhaps nulled (or not, interpretations may differ) when she chooses to spare the dog.
Ah, well. My point remains: this movie has too cynical and dark view of humanity for my tastes. People indeed can descend into monsters but they can also rise into angels. Seeing only the former is the *easy* way to go.