Reviews

The gay son of a traditional Taiwanese family Gao Wai Tung (Winston Chao) has never shared the truth about his sexuality and hopes to solve this problem marrying Wei-Wei, a young artist who does only it for the green card. Everything, as usual in comedies, becomes really complicated when the family goes to New York for the wedding. I really liked the view of the Taiwanese culture. I'm from a quite funny and conservative culture too, south Italian. It's nice to see how you can look at traditions which are not yours in a funny perspective while sometimes you find really heavy your own traditions. Ang Lee is a refined director and it was to make a nice romantic comedy out of this subject. The surprising end makes you think that sometimes we create problems which do not really exist. It would be easier for everybody to face problems as soon as possible instead of trying always to run away.

I haven't seen something so nice for long time, shame on me I just saw this movie. The story is divided in nine chapters and takes place on a stage with minimalist scenery, with chalk marks to indicate walls, streets and even a dog drawn on the floor. It seems to be at the theatre but sitting on the stage, you can feel the actors' breathes. The story narrated by Lars Von Trier is so terrible and so true about human behaviour, about our weakness and contradictions. He succeeded again. The main character is performed by Nicole Kidman and she is perfect for that role, cold but sweet, mysterious but deep at the same time. Grace comes to Dogville while running away from gangsters, the entire community of fifteen people is aware of it and decides to give her the chance to stay there if she proves to be a trustful person. Then starts the weakness of the human nature, power turns people into jackals. Each character, stereotype of a small town character, threaten her to exploit her more and more, worse and worse. The town turns into a prison and she tries to run away from it, being disappointed and humiliated again. A political-religious allegory remains under wraps for most of the film but it comes out in the closing credits in a juxtaposition of David Bowie's Young Americans accompanied by a montage of photographic images. By the end, the victim takes the power and use it against everyone, forgets her rules and ethic to punish. You feel it's right, you feel redeemed, relieved, you want to take the power and punish. It's amazing, you think the way Von Trier thinks and he that's his success. I really enjoyed the movie but I do love very long movie, for someone can be a bit too long but try to keep watching until the end. It's worth of it.