Popular reviews

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  Review by Lily Schmidt ★★★★★ 15

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  “Tell her you’ll stop if she can hold back her tears."

  HOLY SHIT.

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  Review by Lucy ★★★★½ 8

  after a long period of consideration, i've finally decided on an archnemesis: uh lars von trier if you're reading this, i'm coming for you

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  Review by kayla ★★★★½ 12

  This is my 4th Lars von Trier movie and I don’t care what the crew tab says, I’m convinced the same person who does the cameras for The Office also works for Lars sometimes.

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  Review by ˗ˏˋ suspirliam ˊˎ˗ ★★★ 1

  a nightmare on elm street literally a nightmare on elm street

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  Review by Jonathan White ★★★★★ 47

  I’m blurting this review out just minutes after watching. Something I don’t normally do, but I just can’t contain myself, and know I’m going to have to re-watch more than once to write a proper one. Please excuse the ramblings.

  Dogville has been hanging over my head for a while now. As per my usual practice, I tried to avoid any pre knowledge. All I knew is that a: it was Lars Von Trier, b: it was 3 hours long, c: it starred Nicole Kidman, and d: worst of all, it had ShakyCam. Not a good start. I have a mixed history with Von Trier, and I’ve only seen two of his films, Melancholia, which I quite liked, but was…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★★ 2

  [REVIEW]

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  Review by M.D. Perkins ★ 7

  Lars von Trier: Knock knock.
  Me: Who's there?
  LvT: Sadness.
  Me: Sadness, who?
  LvT: I hate America.

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★★ 2

  “Her suffering had created something of value.”
  “Just do what the others do.”

  If there is a right way to exert power (social, political, economic, artistic), one that doesn’t include dishing out untold agony to the poorest among us, we haven’t seen it yet. How well-meaning we might be doesn't seem to matter. I think Von Trier includes himself and his work in this assessment.

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  Review by maria ★★★★½ 6

  i'm actually... in fact... screaming

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  Review by Jacob ★ 5

  "This town is rotten, inside and out."

  Dogville is my least favorite installment of von Trier's exercises in arthouse pessimism. The stripped-down sets and narration establish it as a parable, meant to be taken thematically yet ineffective narratively as a result. The arc of the townspeople's behaviors is predictable, but Grace's sympathy for them just doesn't track, nor does her sudden change of heart. Their behavior isn't innate, it isn't instinctive or defensive. Every person made an active choice, and they should be held accountable in a reasonable manner. The logic here is absurd, and even though I don't at all like how this culminates, it still takes way too long to get there. An enjoyment of von Trier's distinct brand of emotional manipulation is required for this to have any impact at all. Unlike with Dancer in the Dark, I didn't even feel anything with this one beyond frustration.

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  Review by Mike D'Angelo ★★★★★ 4

  92/100

  [originally written for Esquire]

  Walking the red carpet at last year's Cannes Film Festival, Nicole Kidman, in town for the world premiere of Lars von Trier's Dogville, paused for a moment to remove her high heels. The film's notoriously travel-shy director, she explained, had agreed to come to France (via car from Denmark) on the condition that his star greet the press in her bare feet. As passive-aggressive humiliation tactics go, this one was reasonably harmless. Kidman smiled sweetly as she padded up the stairs, unaware that it was merely an aperitif. The main course was served at the press conference, where Von Trier announced that Dogville would be the first part of a trilogy centered on Kidman's character,…

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  Review by PTAbro ★★★ 29

  Holy hell. Dogville is as close to a visceral, visual depiction of pure, unfocused hatred as I have ever seen. It is not depressing, it is not sad, it's just mean. It is not misogynist, misandrist, or even anti-American; this is misanthropy, plain and simple. Here is the reduction of the flaws within every living human into their vilest essence, turning mankind into little more than, you guessed it, a dog - one that doesn't know right from wrong, and one that must be dissuaded from instinct and nature to perform in ways deemed appropriate by self-proclaimed moral superiors. Thus returns the familiar question of 'why' behind the film's production - as far as I can tell, the 'why' is…