Fear of Flying

Tony McKibbin explores the moral labyrinth of Dogville - a portrayal of smalltown USA made entirely on an European soundstage.

Grace and Favour
Lars von Trier is a famously reluctant traveller. But he's also fascinated by the US. How then does one create a work of good faith out of a certain geographical denial? How come it's necessary for a filmmaker like Bruno Dumont to place himself in the California desert to make 29 Palms, yet von Trier can comment on the States from a European soundstage?

It all rests on notions of verisimilitude. Kafka wrote a novel all about America without ever having gone there, so interested was he in something more abstract. Von Trier also needs to find in his aesthetic an artificiality effective enough to eschew realism, and yet at the same time draw the viewer into an emotional affectivity that gives the viewer a strong sense of an American sensibility. In this tale of Grace (Nicole Kidman), a young woman on the run who's sheltered by the population of a small town, von Trier wants to create what we might call an 'emotional concept', where the theme is strong enough to carry the artificiality of the environment.

And so what is von Trier's emotional concept? It's the continuation of his golden heart heroine in another form.

The full article is printed in Film Ireland 96