The Kingdom of Shadows

For anyone has watched very many of Lars Von Triers' movies, it is hard to avoid the thought "my God, this guy really doesn't like women." Most people can talk them out of this conclusion somehow, but the more of his movies that I watch, the more I'm sure my gut reaction is right.

Dogville is about a woman who goes to a small town on the run from gangsters, the townspeople, who originally protect her, eventually start taking advantage of her. Eventually all the men take turns raping her, and they give her over to the gangsters.

While there is a surprise ending that which I won't give away, its fairly easy to conclude after watching a third film that involves a woman suffering extensively for rather abstract reasons, that either the director likes seeing women suffer, he hates men and think that they all make women suffer (or desire to), or he sees these parables as masking a deeper point. In the end all of these arguments come out to the same thing.

The "holy suffering woman" figure is a rather common figure in literature, and has been routinely denounced as sexist. The idea being that women need protection from male sexuality, and that they are always in the position of a "victim." The religious concept of suffering that Von Triers is so big on really just makes matters worse, because it implies a certain value in women suffering.

While the film is interestingly staged, the series of photos that make up the ending credits drives home an anti-American slant in the film that makes me dislike the film even more. In the words of one English friend of mine "anti-Americanism is a lazy prejudice."

There is no doubt that Von Triers knows what he is doing with a camera, but I would find his films much more interesting if he knew what he were doing with a story.

I don't suggest watching this movie, but if you'd like to then you should buy Dogville here