Although described as filmed theater, Dogville feels more like filmed radio.
— J. Hoberman (The Village Voice)
Though von Trier speaks in a broadly anti-American dialect in [his memoir,] Trier on von Trier, in Dogville he is compliant with the cultural mores of Hollywood – the broad-brush morality of sin and punishment, the pornographically explicit representation of sex and violence. The most provocative element of his film is its misbranding as ‘avant-garde’ cinema.
— Joanna Kavenna (London Review of Books)
When a beautiful young Grace arrives in the isolated township of Dogville, the small community agrees to hide her from a gang of ruthless gangsters, and, in return, Grace agrees to do odd jobs for the townspeople.