Dogville concerns the plight of Grace Mulligan as played by Nicole Kidman. The film takes place during The Great Depression and the bare bones plot outline is that Grace is on the run from the Mob and she pleads asylum from the residents of the very small town of Dogville which is nestled in the Rocky Mountains. Dressed in fancy clothes with an expense fur coat, Grace stands in contrast to the plain folk of Dogville. They agree on a rather Faustian bargain. In exchange for hiding her, the townspeople have Grace help out with chores and the everyday things such as cleaning, tutoring kids, picking apples, etc. Eventually the population of Dogville ask more and more from Grace until she tries to escape but is returned. The mobsters eventually catch up with her and Grace ends up leaving Dogville. That's the simple version of it. While there's much to Dogville which looks simple, there is always much more going on than meets the eye.
For instance, there's the set. The film was shot on a soundstage that was minimally dressed. Aside from the odd wall, the town consisted of lines traced on the floor with certain areas, such as people homes & shops, labeled as to what they are. The only fully-realized set pieces were cars and a pickup truck. As for the story, it's billed as having nine chapters and a prologue. The venerable John Hurt narrates with a tone of voice that sounds like he's reading a children's story despite Dogville being a very serious film. It's about rural vs. urban, it's about morality - the film can be read in many ways.
At first, the townspeople were hesitant to let Grace hide amongst them. Tom, a fairly arrogant and intellectual type, convinces them to give Grace a two-week trial and they agree. When she goes around to folks offering her help, she is at first refused. Eventually Grace is able to get on their good sides and they begin to allow her to help out, excepting Chuck, played by Stellan Skarsgård. During the course of one of their conversations, Grace susses out that he is from the big city and why he disdains her. He then rapes her and this provides the impetus for Grace to attempt an escape with Tom's help.
It was the rural vs. urban dichotomy that first grabbed my attention. One of the reasons I enjoyed Dogville so much was that it's portrayal of small town life really resonated with me as moved from Chicago to rural Wisconsin where I lived for about three years. I just thought that the film captured the xenophobia and insularity of my small town experience really well. Small towns look all nice and people seem friendly but there's a dark side hidden underneath all the earthy charm. And I suppose Chuck reminded me a bit of my father. My dad grew up in Minneapolis, then went to Chicago, and ended up in rural Wisconsin. My dad embodied some of the attitudes in the film, namely, Tom and Chuck who deride the small town yet choose to remain there.
For Tom, Grace is a bit of an intellectual experiment. Harboring her is a way for the town to demonstrate that it is caring and compassionate towards strangers. For Grace, Tom and the rest of the town are poor folks whose environment excuses their behavior. And so they are a bit of an experiment for her as well - to be able to demonstrate compassion towards those she considers less fortunate and less civilized than her. She retains her position even when the town turns against her and gives her more work, when the men use her as sex toy, and when they imprison her in her room. Tom ends up calling the mobsters to come and retrieve Grace. When they arrive we discover that the mob boss is Grace's father and that she was trying to escape from his less than savory world. Grace's father accuses her of being arrogant for not holding the people of Dogville to the same standards to which she holds herself. She comes round to his point of view and orders the mobsters to kill everyone and to raze the town. But Grace has a slight change of mind and decides to kill Tom herself.
While the townsfolk of Dogville showed their teeth with their ever-increasing demands of Grace and eventually imprisoning her, it is Grace who is the most vicious. One of the residents had a dog and while we heard the barking, it was always represented with a white outline of a hound. At the very end of the film, the dog barks again and Grace walks over to the outline. She spares the dog and walk away. Then a real dog appears and it looks up the camera. Just as there was a dark side beneath the pleasantness of the town, there was also a dark (and vicious) side lurking beneath Grace's calm, forgiving demeanor.
Manderlay picks up immediately where Dogville left off and find the convoy of mob cars pulling up before tall locked gates. It's Alabama. A black woman comes running to the limo's window and she pleads for help. Despite her father's admonitions against interfering with an ostensibly local matter, Grace intervenes. She is appalled to find slavery alive and well on the plantation. The head of the plantation, Man (played by Lauren Bacall), is on her death bed. She passes and Grace is determined to teach the newly-freed slaves all about freedom & democracy. But before taking her last breath, Mam urges Grace to destroy the book underneath her bed…
In this round, Grace is played by Bryce Dallas Howard instead of Nicole Kidman. While Howard does a great job, she just can't quite measure up to Kidman's fantastic performance. Kidman gives more nuance and as her Grace vacillates between a vulnerable gratitude and a more determined – almost righteous – demeanor. Perhaps a good way to think of it is that Kidman was able to give a performance that was less "realistic". Considering that the sets (or lack thereof) stick out like a sore thumb, I found Kidman's performance to complement this bit of unreality more than Howard's.
Contrasting the above two stills from each film brings up a noticeable difference, namely, that Manderlay is a much darker film. Literally. More of the film happens at night and it felt like there was always a big cloud of darkness hanging outside the area where the action was taking place.
The film once again finds Grace placing herself above others and taking pity on those whom she considers beneath her. She vows to help the former slaves find freedom and embrace democracy in a Port Royal Experiment of her own. From her father she secures the use of some of the mobsters armed with machine guns so it seems she'll impose her plan by peaceful or violent means. In one scene, Grace has the mobsters put on black face and then serves the former slaves dinner. This stunt was not greeted warmly. Danny Glover plays Wilhelm, the slave who was Man's right-hand man. He is skeptical of Grace's plan throughout and it's revealed that the he is the author of the book Mam wanted destroyed. In its pages are descriptions of the slaves which places them into various categories such as "Proudy Nigger" and "Talkin' Nigger". Are the former slaves ready for freedom? With the routines of their lives permanently altered, they have difficulty adjusting to their new routines as Grace has to push thing to get the crops planted, for instance.
Towards the end of the film there is a graphic nude scene. It's not particularly erotic but is tremendously symbolic. In it, one of the former slaves, Timothy, takes a very hesitant Grace to bed. Timothy is played by Isaach De Bankolé who was born in Ivory Coast. His extremely dark skin stands in stark contrast to Howard's white, almost pallid, skin. Howard's entire body is laid bare as Timothy puts a handkerchief over her head and declares her body as his. I found it to be a very powerful scene illustrating the failure of Grace's plan and a recognition that she is, at least in certain ways, not above those she looks down upon. (For the prurient types, you can see some stills here.)
I had less of a personal reaction to Manderlay than I did to Dogville but I still enjoyed it tremendously nonetheless. Rather than seeing my own experiences in it, I watched it and thought about larger issues. The setting serves as a good allegory for our venture in Iraq, for instance. As Dogville's credits rolled, we were presented with pictures of poor Americans through the years as David Bowie's "Young Americans" played. Manderlay closes with a similar montage but this time it showed the history of blacks. Each montage perhaps gives an insight into what the director was trying to express. But, since they are photos of real life, they contrast sharply with the minimal theatrical world of the films. Roger Ebert wrote in his review of Manderlay: "The real action generated by his story begins after the film ends. If audiences still exist for movies like this and debate them afterward -- if, that is, not every single moviegoer in America is lost to mindless narcissistic self-indulgence -- the arguments afterward will be the real show. Many moviegoers are likely to like the film less than the discussions it drags them into." I suspect that these montages are intended to do just that.
For the record, there were 6-8 people in the audience including myself.
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