Film
Dogville, the latest film from Danish director Lars von Trier, is a surprising and frequently disquieting piece of work which confirms his reputation as an uncompromising but undeniably gifted filmmaker. Set in Depression era America, it tells the story of Grace (Nicole Kidman), a woman on the run who arrives in Dogville, a tiny settlement deep in the Rocky Mountains.
The townspeople agree to conceal her presence, urged on by Tom (Paul Bettany), who sees himself as the town's moral leader and who subsequently falls for Grace. She struggles to ingratiate herself with her hosts by taking on an ever-increasing number of tasks. Things begin to take a darker turn and gradually she becomes a slave for the town, under constant threat of being revealed to the authorities. As the seemingly kindly townspeople reveal their true face, Grace reaches the depths of degradation, repeatedly raped and confined as a prisoner. Von Trier saves Dogville's most shocking scenes for its finale, in which Grace reveals her own true face with terrible consequences.
Dogville bears traces of the ideas which von Trier developed in the 90s as co-founder of the Dogme school of filmmaking. Rejecting cinematic artificiality in favour of a stark naturalistic approach, it also echoes his previous film, Dancer in the Dark, a musical starring Björk which shares some broadly similar themes. To say that Dogville remains highly distinctive would, however, be an understatement. The film is divided into nine chapters, and the plot is driven forward by John Hurt's subtle, knowing narration, which reveals with gentle irony the characters' underlying motivations. The first shock, though, comes from the almost total absence of set, giving the film an atmosphere reminiscent of a play by Brecht; filmed entirely in a Swedish studio, the houses are indicated solely by chalk lines drawn onto the floor and the actors mime the opening and closing of doors. But the ease with which we forget these initially disconcerting constraints is a testament to the film's absorbing power - due in no small measure to Kidman's extraordinary portrayal of Grace, a woman worn down in her integrity, and forced to reconsider her beliefs about humanity until she takes horrific revenge.
Dogville is particularly disturbing because Von Trier makes us long for this brutal vengeance on a town in which even the children are corrupt, leading his audience to collude in his bleak view of human nature. The film can be seen as anti-American (a charge denied by von Trier) or as an allegory of the evils of power, but however you choose to view it, it is impossible to come away from it with indifference.
This Valentine offering written and directed by rom com veteran Nancy Meyers obediently adheres to the traditional blueprint. Harry (Jack Nicholson's greying playboy) and Erica (Diane Keaton's uptight playwright) are the unlikely pair who are forced into eachother's company and finally crack, surrendering to passion under the pressure of candle-light and ambient music. After months of soul-searching they admit unconquerable mutual attraction and (presumably) spend the rest of their lives in a haze of post-coital glow.
The film's rather thin gimmick is that Nicholson (whose character refuses to date the over 30s) plays a second-hand lover - he actually meets Keaton whilst dating her daughter Marin (Amanda Peet). After a heart-attack thwarts his attempt to bed the nubile younger woman he conveniently ends up being nursed better by her mother. At her tasteless holiday house in the Hamptons. All alone. Keaton's character is summed up in that she keeps decorative bowls of pebbles around the house. Her sexual liberation is suggested with subtlety to the audience when she allows Nicholson to literally cut her out of her polo-necked jumper, magically unlocking her frigidity and transforming her into a randy wearer of v-necks. Predictably, Erica scares Harry off with a premature declaration of love. Heartbroken, (during embarrassing tear-stained scenes) Keaton manages to to write a smash-hit play based on her fateful love affair, and simultaneously to cultivate liasons with a hunky young doctor (Keanu Reeves). His subsiduary love-plot is rushed along in order to land Keaton in a decision-making scene when the three find themselves in Paris (in a warped version of France with friendly waiters). The film has a few good gags but it relentlessly props itself up on the 'old-people-in-love' theme, relying too heavily on jokes about Viagra and short-sightedness. The talented lead actors attempt to make the best of a bad situation but seem out of place rehearsing painfully trite dialogues about the brevity of life, which according to Nicholson's character, passes "like the blink of an eye." The film itself feels slightly longer than that.
Cheaper By The Dozen is a remake of a 1950's family comedy about Tom Baker (Martin), the selfish father of twelve kids. When his wife (Hunt) goes away on business his kids decide to teach him a lesson for being a neglectful father. On paper this is a relatively harmless comedy. However, in practice the film comes across as the bastard offspring of Home Alone and The Waltons, offering weak slapstick and offensively obvious moral lessons.
One of the golden rules in Hollywood is never work with children or animals. Director Levy offers reasonable justification for adding Martin to this 'danger list'. It would appear that the real Steve Martin, the man behind comic classics such as The Jerk and Roxanne, has been replaced with some worn-out clone whose constant gurning is about as funny as getting smacked in the mouth with a hammer.
The twelve obnoxious children who play the 'dozen' of the title don't make the film easier to bear. Their acting abilities consist purely of screaming, being messy, more screaming and occasionally being sick and then screaming about it. If it achieves anything, Cheaper By The Dozen presents a good argument for bringing back the cane; if only to give Martin and director Levy a good hiding.
As a comedy this fails miserably and as a piece of filmmaking it is atrociously mediocre in its style. Through its unbearable 90 minutes it becomes clear that the only thing getting cheaper by the dozen are Martin's choice in films. Avoid.
12th Feb 2004