This and Dogville


Had very similar main characters.
The point of both stories is very different, but the idea of someone idealistic stoically accepting misfortune from others in spite of their own perceived innocence is present on both.
I don't care much for this movie, though, and I think the difference lies in the ending.
In the end of Dogville Grace's father shows her how arrogant she was in never subjecting people to her own moral ideals. In essence, Grace becomes a real person, rather than an ideal, and is faced with the duty of actually righting the wrongs - namely, punishing the town for what they did to her, what she could never had forgiven herself for doing if she were in their place.
In this movie, however, Bjork's character never stops being ideal. She is never confronted with the fact that her inaction is essentially the same as acting in spite of herself. She never becomes a real person. Instead the movie ends bleakly as we see someone so unrealistic be subjected to a fate that would never have happened had she had an ounce of actual human being in her.
In all honesty, that's what irks me about this movie, and it's the reason I love Dogville (among other reasons, because Dogville is amazing). If her character had been just a little less ideal, or if maybe in the end (even if the ending itself didn't change) she embraced "realness", so to speak, as Grace does in Dogville, I think I would probably like this a lot more.
It's not a bad movie at all, it's just... not as good as Dogville.

-I'm done trying to win over their hearts.
-Let's attack their hearts.

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