A stage, a few pieces of chalk, a few backgrounds, some props, and a group of people, such a simple combination is all the "belongings" of the movie "Dogtown". This is a bold, avant-garde experimental style in filmmaking, which not only subverts the film's image effects, but also opens up new ideas for film authors - as long as the story is good enough and the characters are in place, many things are dispensable. Extremely simple sets, actors without physical objects, several reversals in a limited space... It is precisely this style of complexity and simplicity that has made the controversy over the theme of "Dogtown" still endless.
It is no exaggeration to say that every work of Ras von Trier is controversial. Holding hands with Cannes several times, he was expelled by Cannes; he crushed Jiang Wen's "The Devil Is Coming" with a "Dancer in the Dark", and then questioned the level of the "Dogtown" that he wants to comment on today. Russ had said arrogantly:
"There are only two film directors in Denmark, one is Carl Theodore Dreyer and the other is me."
The Danish director, who wanders between genius and madman, uses his works to question the grand themes of tradition, institutions, and human nature, while quietly adding his understanding to his works. For example, in the "Dog Town" to be reviewed today, the heroine's Jedi counterattack and final judgment and the dark humanity of the town's residents have been repeatedly beaten many times.
As I said in my previous review of Portrait of a Burning Woman:
Each movie has its own "pass code".
To truly understand Dogtown, one must focus on the dialogue between Grace and his father near the end of the film, where the key word "arrogant" is the vehicle of the director's true intentions. The word itself has no esoteric meaning, it is "arrogant and arrogant". In the film, the term appears in the father's accusations against his daughter (which I prefer to reveal and define):
"You don't give others the opportunity to take responsibility for their actions, it's an extreme arrogance."
Upon closer examination, it is a feeling of standing on top of the highest moral standards and looking down on sentient beings, like the name grace – all meanings are positive, bright and without a hint of neutrality or even negativity: beautiful; Elegance; Genteel; Elegance; Demeanor; decent...... Therefore, this heroine's trust and yearning for human nature has a strong magical color, and her prediction of reality and trust in discourse in the process of watching the film will even make the audience have a strange feeling.
For example, at the beginning of the film, she makes a "rustic" judgment of the people of this place simply because the residents of the town are instinctively wary of her "falling from the sky". Later, when notices about her were repeatedly posted on the town's public walls, and when the townspeople raised the "price tag" of taking her in again and again, she still felt that all this was taken for granted. Even until she was violated and repeatedly violated, she only regarded all this as an "inevitable development."
Simply put, even if the audience looks at those dialogues and things from the perspective of the "other", they cannot predict the development of the situation at all. So after she makes a series of misjudgments, when she is chained like a dog, the audience will involuntarily think of "sinful" ideas such as "self-inflicted guilt" in their minds while feeling pity.
Inside and outside the play, the thoughts and judgments of this character not only accelerate the "original form" of the small town residents, but also let the viewer unconsciously experience the "evil" in the deepest part of human nature.
So that's the problem that the movie throws at everyone, and it's where the movie is as confusing as Parasite. In "Parasite", more than 90% of the audience pointed the finger at the poor, believing that "poor mountains and evil waters produce people", "evil is born of courage", "where is the terrible place of people's poor hearts", and other judgments with high class tendencies. Perhaps this is the reason why the South Korean chaebol originally intended to invest money in this film and let it be released and participated in, and the result of the film finally sweeping the international awards is also popular with everyone.
However, when the rich who occupy resources in the day, the rich who have no thinking and judgment ability like "silly white sweet" and the standing together in the final analysis who occupy a little living space by their own ability, for this society, who is the real "parasite"?
Like the movie "Dogtown", are the real villains the townspeople? So when the final key "arrogant" came out, why did Grace wash the dog town in blood, and also shoot with his own hands to end the people who said "love"? Grace's own "goodness" and "moral standards" unconditionally embrace all right and wrong, and deprive these people of the opportunity to change and be responsible unintentionally and ruthlessly.
True evil, perhaps not the great right and wrong of the mouth and put into action, or the "arrogance" of standing on the commanding heights and looking down on sentient beings and using one's own yardstick and constant measure of everything, is the root of original sin.
In film and television works, literary works, and even daily life, people often say this sentence:
"In broad daylight..."
As soon as such a prefix is issued, it is as if a sin has been revealed. But in the movie "Dogtown", twice it is obvious that the "moonlight appears" clearly expressed by the narrator is the beginning of all tragedies and the end of all evil.
At the beginning of the film, Grace, an outsider, stands at the end of the town, and the moonlight appears at the right time to dye everything as far as the eye can see. It is also the main reason why "candlelight dinner" has become synonymous with "romance". In this way, the original face of the town is obscured by the moonlight, and the original dilapidation and filthy laziness are instantly changed into "rustic", "amiable" and even "paradise".
Therefore, Grace, who had not yet been freed from the fear generated in the process of being hunted, seemed to see god's guidance and developed an inexplicable trust and good feeling for the town. But like the moon, which only shines by reflecting the sun, all this is nothing more than the illusion of a "mirror flower and water moon", and the town is completely unstoppable after two foreign "warnings" - the original form is revealed, and the grace is pushed into the abyss.
The reversal of the ending surprised everyone, whether it was the small townspeople in the play or the ordinary audience outside the play - the grace whose portrait was placed on the notice turned out to be the daughter of the gang boss, not the legendary criminal. Until her father's motorcade appeared in Dogtown, until the heroine got into the car that isolated the world and blocked power, she was still arguing with her father about "right and wrong" and "human nature". The phrase "your innate arrogance" made Grace clearly realize that what she had always called moral standards was nothing more than a ruler that ordinary people could not reach and touch above her head, and she judged sentient beings and was proud of it.
But even as her worldview collapses, she still has a last vestige of pity for the town—until the eerie moonlight reappears. This time, instead of a deceptive filter of light, the moonlight shone straight into every inch of land—a land of self-imposed, evil deeds, a land stained with the tears and footprints of Grace's humiliation, and the faces of every man who had trampled on her dignity.
As if "a precursor to judgment" and another "god's guidance", Grace finally stopped and refused to make a defense for Dogtown, and gave the order to "exterminate and kill". She took over not only her father's power, but also his father's values, and also resolutely carried his father's "moral yardstick" on her own body.
Finally, grace of God (for the Christian doctrine, the meaning of the name itself), confused by the moonlight and guided by the moonlight, succeeded in becoming his own God.
There is an ancient text that writes such a story.
Hua Xin and Wang Langju took refuge by boat, and one of them wanted to cling to them. Lang Yue: "Fortunately, why not?" After the thief chased after him, the king wanted to give up the people he was carrying. Xin Yue: "Ben is suspicious, and it is for this ear." Having accepted his self-trust, would you rather abandon evil in a hurry? And so the salvation was as good as ever. The world determines the merits and demerits of Hua and The King.
It probably means that two people are going to leave the place by boat to flee, and just then an outsider comes to ask to take the boat together. One of them was reluctant and the other said there was plenty of space in the boat, so what's not to like? So the three of them walked together. Later, when the thieves were about to catch up with them, the person who had agreed to the third person on the boat should abandon the latecomer to reduce the weight of the hull and speed up the march. At this time, the person who was originally reluctant stepped forward to prevent all this from happening.
The last sentence is intriguing, and the world uses this matter to taste the good and bad of the two. What are the definable results? According to the order of the original text of the ancient text, it was the good people who did the good things later, and the ones who first took in outsiders became the bad people. In today's ever-changing core of the story, such things often happen around us, or in the stories we can hear and see.
Just like the whole storyline of the movie "Dogtown", in addition to the "writer" who has always had a selfish heart, has not been impurely motivated, didn't the residents of Dogtown also take the unknowable and potentially huge risks to take in the grace at the beginning? It is the change and development of things and the repeated concessions of Grace that show the most essential appearance and the most primitive desires of all people like peeling an onion. And Grace, who was initially fully accepting and obedient, ended up being the only outsider in the village—the first and the last. Because the town no longer exists.
People grow in change, change in growth, this is an established fact that has always remained unchanged. By extension, people's choices and thoughts are also rapidly changing, and they will combine the changes in their environment and mentality to make quiet changes without knowing it. The same is true in the movie Dogtown. Whether it is the "improvisation" of residents or the forced subversion of grace, it is a existence that complements objective facts - influencing each other in alternation, moving forward,
Dogtown is a film that requires patience, and it is also a film that requires a lot of endurance to see the end. The "trial" at the end may make people feel the pleasure of "good and evil are rewarded", but the "arrogance" that runs through the whole movie is also a point that cannot be ignored. Most of the townspeople are native ignorance (except for the first outsiders who defile Grace), but Grace's "compassion" is based on the total acceptance of "good or bad".
This is also a question that the audience needs to think about.
Dogtown gives viewers a unique way of watching the film, allowing everyone to focus more intently on the decay and dirtiness presented in every detail.