Dogville
Lars von Trier, 2003, 178 min

In the fictitious rural American town of Dogville, a mysterious woman arrives seeking shelter from her troubled past. She agrees to work for the townspeople in exchange for protection from a band of gangsters pursuing her. As the threat becomes imminent, the townspeople modify their arrangement with potentially fatal consequences. Never a stranger to Brechtian formal experimentation, von Trier employed a uniquely designed black-box set for the town with virtually no facades or building structures and further heightened the work’s theatricality by relying upon an unseen male narrator.

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Screening as part of our Close-Up on Lars von Trier