Dogville ***half

Dogville ***half
dir. Lars Von Trier
genre: theatre philosophy morality play

Very powerful piece. Star studded piece.
Nicole Kidman is v gd.
I find Lars Von Trier's films are often cruel and grates against your nerves to watch, like so much stupidity, cruelty and the people who would bend to allow such things to happen but these are all very powerful human emotions that he somehow kicks up.   
I think, in life there is already many many such cruelty and ugliness, why make them up one more time?
His subject is always ugliness of human nature, how people are forced into being selfish, ugly, cruel, scheming, sadic, arrogant (the more "forgiving you are of bad things done to you the more arrogant you are"), mistrust, small town, the smaller the tighter the worst, big cities are bad, so are small towns, the ugliness is the same, its within human beings.
The scenario is without much decor - like Pekin Operas with minimal furniture, a lot depends on narrations, description from a voice off narrator.
I thought right from the beginning this girl is either a concubine or lover or daughter of a gangster.  She is no ordinary runaway.  And here she is, she is either in the gangster world or in the other equally ugly ordinary people's world.

She had this dog collar w a metal wheel and chain to show she is truly enslaved to the last drop.  Very powerful piece.

The last movie I saw of Lars Von Trier was the one with Kirsten Dunst - Melancholia.  Equally stunning.
Even though I don't like his films, because it is often hard to watch, I must say, they are great works with a wide vision and not at all pointillist.