You present the basic outline of "Dogville" with clarity and one can only admire your positive attitude and openness to so many films of an offbeat and challenging nature, but your presentation is rather misleading, and certainly can't be considered a "review" -- just a teaser, with little hint of the ordeal to come for many those who watch the whole three hours.

The actions of Tom were of particular interest to me, given how he is introduced as a compassionate, well-educated, perhaps altruistic man.

You don't choose to comment further. Isn't it also obvious from the start that Tom is egocentric and inefffectual? I would have at least inserted the word "ostensibly."

"Vanya on 42nd Street" with its humanism, its theatrical sophistication (the direction of the actors in "Dogville" is spotty at best), its warmth and richness of social content, seems a very odd comparison to me. "Vanya" is "bare bones" theatrically but it's more like a final reading of a play that's been very well rehearsed; "Dogville" seems roughly improvised and many of the readings are awkward. And there can be no comparison of the writing.

I'm also surprised you don't mention Wilder's "Our Town," to which many think von Trier is alluding. I also mentioned Brecht in my review because both writers have a schematic and didactic approach.

I cringe to think of America being dealt with in two more brutal movies in the von Trier style. Or should I say "America" since he has never been here?