From the opening image of a soccer ball punctured mid-air by a bullet, you know this is one director with a crystal-clear vision (even if that vision recalls Kubrick’s 2001, among others). Bravura action sequences – like the takedown at a brothel or the shooting inside a strobe-lit disco – and a pistol-whipping editing style make this a flashy winner, but it’s the sprawling assortment of characters and their tales that will keep City of God stuck in your mind.
With its intersecting lives, constantly rewinding back-stories and grisly humor, it most resembles Quentin Tarantino’s homages to bloody-minded mayhem. But underneath the flash, Meirelles stirs a genuine sorrow for the homeless youth of Rio, who outnumber any other country’s in the world. Even the plight of a chicken being chased through the streets becomes our concern. By revealing a desperate cycle of violence that leaves a fresh batch of kids picking up guns and starting all over again by the film’s end, Meirelles has created a memorable, affecting universe within a small, crime-ridden corner of the planet.
The almost-bare stage set seems to lend this tale a Brechtian distance, but the abuse, when it comes, is no less distasteful. The knaves this time around are the inhabitants of a small, mountainside town called Dogville who first embrace and then test the endurance of a visitor named Grace (Nicole Kidman). Tom, the intellectual in town, looks upon Grace’s arrival as a chance to "illustrate" the town’s sense of community.
On another level, it’s a warped Christian parable. With her shining countenance and methodical patience, Grace seems to embody Christ-like qualities: she’s on the run from gangsters, but convinces the residents of her essential goodness. And as matters unfold, she is left bearing a makeshift cross (an iron wagon wheel chained and fastened to her neck), betrayed and denied. Grace handles the townsfolk with patient indulgence and wide-eyed regard – exactly like an adult handling children. But the experiment in Dogville works only as long as the outside world remains outside: once a sheriff arrives with a "MISSING" (then "WANTED") poster, the Dogvillagers’ faith begins to wobble.
Artifice, too, makes Dogville difficult to watch. The stripped-down stage is meant to convey a candid intimacy with the characters, but the theatrical acting and voice-on-high narration (by John Hurt) only increase our distance. Despite Von Triers’ reputation, this is no Dogmaville: there’s music, and a cheeky recognition of film-genre history (notably gangster movies and Depression-era flicks like Grapes of Wrath). But ultimately, it plays like a Twilight Zone episode penned by Thornton Wilder (with an assist from Mickey Spillane). Payback is central to the payoff in Dogville, and in this Von Trier pays homage to another film genre: the revenge flick. Exploitation films like Death Wish and Avenging Angel (in which a schoolgirl who is raped takes methodical revenge on her assailants) outrageously stack the deck until only retribution will allow us to leave the cinema happy.
All of which makes the ending seem like a cynical rewrite of the Bible. In the back of a gangster’s car (appropriately bearing a dignified James Caan), the Old Testament and New Testament come into direct conflict. And guess which Testament doesn’t win? We can also question whether Von Trier, by montaging photos of pinched, hardened faces from the Depression at the end credits (with David Bowie’s bouncy Young Americans providing the soundtrack), is saying that the poor are simply mean. Or is it just the American poor?
Les Freres Dardenne have devised a disturbing tale with (again) Christian overtones: Jesus, after all, was Himself a carpenter. Hired to teach the basics of woodworking to kids who have served years in lockup for a variety of crimes, Olivier becomes obsessed with his new arrival, a blank-eyed kid named Francis whom he suspects of having killed his son.
Instead of shuffling the paperwork and getting the youth reassigned, he decides to take him on as an apprentice. His ex-wife, Magli, becomes physically ill when she finds out: "Who do you think you are? Who would do such a thing?"
The relationship between teacher and ex-con edges uneasily closer to a father-son relationship, but all the while the direction challenges our perceptions, burrowing deeper into character and behavior. At first, Olivier seems cold, repressed, perhaps psychologically unstable (even Magli’s disclosure that she is getting remarried – and is pregnant – barely raises a shrug from the implacable instructor). Then there are signs of warmth. Then we are questioning his motives once again. The sideways approach to Olivier’s character (played with systematic attention to detail by Olivier Gourmet) works especially well here.
To give much more away would ruin the experience of The Son, which is told in classic French New Wave-style: all hand-held pans and close-ups so intimate they make it nearly impossible to breathe, let alone keep a distance. Quietly effective.