"This town is rotten from the inside out..."

I recently watched Dogville directed by Lars von Trier. To say that I have mixed feelings about this film is to put it mildly, this is with out a shadow of a doubt the most challenging and draining film I have ever watched. I could, and would certainly enjoy, ranting about this film for pages and pages but that isn't relevant to my project. All I will say is that the film is pretty much flawless and works brilliantly, which is exactly why I never want to watch it ever again.

One element of this film, indeed the reason I sat down to watch it in the first place, is, however, extremely interesting. Rather than film on a realistic set or on location in middle america or somewhere akin to that, the film takes an extremely minimal approach to the set. The small town of Dogville is created from a blue-print like layout on the ground, complete with white outlines and labels, for example "Ben's Garage" , "Elm st." and the "Gooseberry Bushes". The setting is made real by use of lighting, sound effects and ,of course, the actors' performances. In addition, the film is told from narration, performed by the amazing John Hurt, that feels more like that of a novel than it ever does a film.

During the first few minutes the set is somewhat of a novelty, it is very interesting to behold, but soon enough the minimal set design is forgotten and the town becomes real, only to be reminded of once in a while, but only ever for a short time. I for one, expected that the set would continually remind me of the fictitious nature of the piece, but it actually worked extremely well, in fact the somewhat unusual editing techniques seemed to break my immersion more than the set ever did. More so, the set design meant that a number of wonderful shots could be used, bringing the whole town together despite being in separate buildings as well as giving the whole film a theatrical feel, which I find is one of the more charming aspects of the film. Anything that the use of lighting, sound or performance could not create was described to the audience by the narration, completing the illusion of a small town.

This approach provides me with what maybe a good solution to my problem of not being able to afford epic sets, elaborate costumes and stunning effects. With this minimal approach, although I'm sure that lack of funding wasn't von Trier reason for taking such an approach, means that these things are unnecessary. All that is needed are the actors and a fair but of creative thinking. For example, why bother having gooseberry bushes when you can just draw an outline on the ground and act as if they were there?  In fact perhaps I could take this approach one step further, why have fancy costumes when simplistic black costumes are enough?

This approach to sets and props is certainly worth investigating further, maybe a look into more theatrical techniques is needed?

Below is a bird's eye view of the set, to give an idea of what I'm talking about.