2004, R, 177 minutes

Lars von Trier's Dogville is a one-of-a-kind, love-it-or-hate-it film experience. The Danish director of Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark again presents a dark drama, this time doing away with virtually all film conventions. An impeccable cast led by Nicole Kidman works with von Trier to create something unusual, challenging, and rare: a masterpiece.

Dogville is a three-hour filmed play, and a minimalist one at that. The small Rocky Mountain town of Dogville is represented on a large, barren soundstage. Sets and props are minimal, so we see the actors opening and closing imaginary doors, for instance. None of the small houses on the stage have walls, and their boundaries are represented by chalk outlines on the floor.

Dogville is a small, isolated town with only 15 or so residents. The Depression-era townspeople have a set way of life. Tom (Paul Bettany) is a writer/philosopher who has a tendency to call town meetings in the church. Despite being one of the younger residents in town, he acts as a leader. One night during a stroll, Tom hears a pair of gunshots. A few minutes later, Grace (Kidman) appears, and she's in trouble. On the run from gangsters, Grace seeks refuge in Dogville. Tom is immediately smitten with the beautiful stranger, so he calls together a town meeting to introduce Grace to his fellow residents. Despite apprehension from some, Tom persuades the group to give Grace a chance in exchange for some light chores around people's homes.

After a couple of weeks, the earnest and hard-working Grace wins over the town, and they unanimously vote for her to stay. She even has a budding romance going with Tom. But when outside law enforcement hangs a "wanted" poster of Grace in Dogville, the townspeople slowly begin to turn on her. Grace is soon enduring such emotional and physical hardships that the very place she wanted to escape to becomes the place she knows she must escape from.

To give away any more would be a disservice to this engrossing and original film, but suffice it to say that von Trier puts Kidman through the wringer, much the way he did for Emily Watson in Waves and Bjork in Dancer. His leading ladies are often degraded and victimized, but they're also resilient, strong women who find untapped resources in themselves to cope with emotionally difficult situations. The townspeople of Dogville get caught up in a kind of mob mentality of cruelty, not realizing that they may be messing with the wrong woman.

The bare-bones look of Dogville puts the attention on the actors first and foremost, so von Trier wisely assembled an amazing cast. Kidman has never been better, creating a character that runs the emotional gamut through the course of the film. Bettany is also excellent as the morally ambiguous Tom, whose motivations regarding Grace are always in question. The cast also includes Stellan Skarsgard, Patricia Clarkson, Lauren Bacall, James Caan, Ben Gazzara, Philip Baker Hall, Blair Brown, Jeremy Davies, and Chloe Sevigny, all of whom create complex characters. John Hurt narrates the film in a matter-of-fact way, keeping the same tone whether he's describing something mundane or horrifying.

Some may call von Trier's staging and filming of Dogville a stunt, with its highly unrealistic set. The small, isolated town is supposed to be another world onto itself, so the set only serves to support that. Besides, with a story this gripping and a cast this magnificent, von Trier's choices behind the camera are secondary. Dogville is not for everyone, but anyone who takes the journey won't soon forget it.