2. Dogville
So here I am touching on a second obvious director. Lars von Trier, much like David Lynch has developed an identity as an auteur who relishes making an audience uncomfortable by frustrating expectations or by showing on screen what others might consider taboo. In a contemporary world cinema course I took at the University of Canterbury some years back, the professor seemed to have a particular fixation with von Trier and screened for us his whole Golden Heart trilogy. And thus was born for me a certain love/hate relationship with von Triers films. There were aspects of Breaking the Waves, The Idiots, and Dancer in the Dark that I appreciated, but I didnt enjoy the experience of watching those films. You know that feeling when you take a perfectly sympathetic character and dump an insurmountable pile of crap on them? Its really not fun being a witness to their ultimate suffocation under all that steaming poo. But Dogville is different. Initially it seems like Nicole Kidmans Grace Mulligan may fit perfectly with the protagonists of the Golden Heart films, but there is more to Grace than you initially expect. Dogville has an explosive conclusion that, just maybe, allows us to leave the theater with a little more satisfaction than some of von Triers other works. Why, though, is it on this list of weird movies? Well, both because of the style and because of its effects. First of all, the style is really unlike much else Ive seen on film. In some ways its relatable to seeing a stage play because the set is just a large soundstage representing the community and different structures are established just through painted lines on the floor. This allows the audience to see many characters much of the time even if theyre not involved in the action of the scene. This effect is most noteworthy during a rape scene when there are characters literally just feet away from the rape but on the other side of a wall and therefore unaware of the incident. The other reason Ive included it here is because of the lingering effects. Without really giving anything away, the end scene is so unexpected and so distinct in tone from the rest of the film I literally found myself laughing out loud even though there was certainly nothing funny about the images on the screen. Much like Mulholland Drive, Dogville has a way of getting under your skin and festering in a not wholly unpleasant way.