Dogville is one of those movies that tend to divide movie goers passionately down the middle. I've spoken with many who absolutely love this film (particularly it's violent , veangeful ending) but even more people agree with myself that it is an indulgent, boring waste of one of the best casts ever assembled. Lars Von Trier's latest self-conscious ``work of genius'' is part biblical parable, part Animal Farm-type allegory and part anti-American harangue and an overall tedious and pretentious piece of crap.

Its Ibsen-esque heroine is the meaningfully named Grace (Nicole Kidman), a beautiful, mysterious fugitive whose unexpected arrival in a small mining town in the Colorado Rockies (actually a flat Danish soundstage with painted lines that resemble a monopoly board delineating houses and streets) turns into a kind of social experiment where human nature is put on trial. Even with spare "Waiting For Godot" set seems promising - but this promise is in no way kept.
We're not exactly sure who Grace is hiding from, but the scenario throws this guarded and well-structured community into a quandary. Her chief defender and moon-eyed confidante, a Dogvillian writer for some reason named Tom Edison (an automatonlike Paul Bettany), takes up the cudgels for her - and even convinces the town's irascible shop owner (a scowling Lauren Bacall) to assist in her assimilation.

Paying jobs are found for her, although her wages soon shrink along with the town's kindness. Before you know it, the townsfolk feel Grace owes them big time, and virtually every man in town, including a spry retiree, is taking advantage of her sexually. It's as if von Trier is endlessly obsessed with the victimization of women - see Breaking The Waves and Dancer in the Dark (both of which starred the terrific Stellan Skarsgard) in Dogville he seems to have come full circle as the female protagonist is offered the last bloody laugh.

Skarsgard has been quoted as saying that Dogville is the third installment in this "women as hapless objects" trilogy. Breaking the Waves was a much better film as was Dancer in the Dark, but if this is the finale, then it renders all three films moot. This story seems to get worse with each installment.

Still with all the hoity toity philosophy and politics aside, von Trier has forgotten to make a movie worth watching, create a single sympathetic character or write dialogue that isn't completely embarrassing for all involved. And what a cast to squander. Aside from Bettany, Skarsgard and Kidman, there are the considerable talent of Patricia Clarkson, Ben Gazzara, James Caan, Chloe Sevigny , Bacall, and a flat and lifeless voice-over by John Hurt. Quite frankly this film is just plain painful to sit through. Very little rings true, the performances are inutterably stilted and again the dialogue is borderline offensive. This "town without pity" is truly ridiculous in every way and the various scenarios leave the audience squirming in their seats.

As for the moderately satisfying payoff at it's end, this comes after nearly three hours of infernal tedium. If anything this film makes me want to go back and see if I wasn't completely wrong in praising Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark. Everything about Dogville is alienating, the only thing that could have possibly made this film any worse is if it had been a musical.