What can I say about Lars von Trier...I do believe that maybe is the only film director nowadays that creates cinema, because he has something important to say. And of course is the only director, who has a really attractive, alternative European proposition, that can compare with USA film industry. Lars von Trier is a cinema scholar, a cinema academic. He doesn't make movies to entertain; he doesn't make movies for viewers, whose main aim is to kill time. It's difficult, sometime even painful to watch his movies, but by far creates cinema that really maters, one way or the other...and this is a very difficult achievement.

In "Dogville" the whole "Trier-ian universe" is drawn with chalk on a blackboard. Space exists but at the same time, everything is wide open to public eye. Walls, rooms, doors, streets, neighborhoods, everything exists only as white lines on a huge blackboard studio set. The depiction of space limits with a naturalistic way, is not necessary at all. The important thing is that limits do exist, mostly in people's mind - and of course in our mind as audience as well. Maybe it sounds a bit awkward: there is no natural set at all, no open space shooting and the whole environment is obviously artificial. You could say that everything is exactly like a theater scene - like watching a theatrical play, filmed as a cinema movie. But you forgot all about this after 10 minutes at most, because this is not the point at all. Lars von Trier is focusing in an absolute way, on the true meaning. He is keeping only the essential elements of this meaning - he is focusing on the "naked" meaning - leaving outside the entire fancy-blockbuster-hi-tech-Hollywood-production thing. Lars von Trier's cinematic, narrative discourse is absolute abstractive and metaphorical.

This particular "chalk-drawn on blackboard universe", is a small Colorado next-to-nowhere town called Dogville. One day in 1930's, Grace, a beautiful fugitive, arrives on town running to escape from a team of gangsters. Tom, the most educated and intellectual youngster of town and a kind of self-appointed town spokesman, convinces the rest of the Dogvillians to hide her and in return, Grace agrees to work for them. When the search reaches to an end, the people of Dogville, demand more work and more effort from Grace, for the shelter they're providing her. But these demands are continuously rising day-by-day and poor Grace very soon understands, that she's been trapped in a situation where human goodness, slowly transforms to the worst human evilness. Beautiful and innocent Grace ends up, locked with an iron ball to her foot, exhaustingly working all day long for the rude and mean Dogvillian housewives and continuously raped every night by their husbands. But the climax and the concentration of human evil on town is so much, that catharsis is demanded to come. Grace is keeping a dangerous secret and Dogville will soon regret...

Nicole Kidman as Grace, gives the best performance of her career so far. She is Grace, beautiful, innocent and patient to every torture suffers from Dogvillians, but in the end she's making her choice: She can be either "Jesus", or "Nemesis". She chooses to be the second. And no one can blame her. Paul Bettany is young Tom Edison, the intellectual with the good wills but no power at all, the one who loves her in a romantic way but also, the one who betrays her at the end, with the cruelest way. "Dogville" is a brilliant study to human nature. Von Trier's eye, with his unique narrative technique, finds the way to reveal all the dark depths of human soul. The problem is, if the viewer can take it or not.

I'm sure that "Dogville", soon will be taught to Film Studies University Schools all over the world. It's one of these - unfortunately, very rare - moments left that reminds you the fundamental duty of film directors and actors to be first of all, Artists - with capital "A" of the word.