Danish director Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark) has always provoked, but usually he does so through art. Dogville is agitprop. A failed, formalist experiment involving a single soundstage and chalk marks to denote buildings, the movie follows a moll (Nicole Kidman) on the run in Depression-era America who seeks solace in a small town in the Rocky Mountains. The locals’ kindness soon turns to cruelty, and the entire movie turns into a muddled, myopic screed against American capitalism.
