Dogville (2003)

IMDb plot summary: A woman on the run from the mob is reluctantly accepted in a small Colorado community in exchange for labor, but when a search visits the town she finds out that their support has a price.

Directed by Lars von Trier. Starring Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, John Hurt, and Stellan Skarsgård.

The gimmick of this film is that the "set" is actually just a giant soundstage, with chalk outlines marking the presence of walls, doors, and bushes. It's very theatrical, which I love from an aesthetic standpoint, but I'm still working out how this gimmick helps or hurts the movie's narrative. It definitely puts the town's lack of material goods front and center -- these townspeople don't appear to even have walls, much less anything else Kidman would have expected in her previous life. And like all Von Trier movies, it's unbelievably depressing. I went and read some reviews later and a lot of them bash it as being too cynical about humanity, but I think it actually makes some interesting points about our tendency to segregate and self-preserve and about tribalism, all of which have seemed more obvious here in the US over the last four years. I'm not entirely sure that I grasp Von Trier's ultimate message here, and unlike some of his others I feel he IS trying to make a definitive point here, rather than just tell a story, but I often find his films powerful and emotionally resonant despite not being convinced of his messaging, and that is true here as well. Definitely an engaging film that's likely to stick with me.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Dogville > Letters from Iwo Jima

Dogville > The Black Cat

Dogville < Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation

Dogville > You Can't Take It With You

Dogville > Purple Noon

Dogville < Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Dogville < Ordet

Dogville < Regarding Henry

Dogville > Brothers

Dogville > Driving Miss Daisy

Dogville > The Royal Tenenbaums

Dogville < Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Final spot: #496 out of 3254, or 85%.