Dogville is a meditation on the appropriate response to human cruelty. It explores the ultimate insufficiency of mercy to reform the human heart without the aid of justice. The film is shot on a stage rather like a play. The set, which encompasses the town of Dogville with its various buildings, has no walls. The buildings are marked by outline on the stage, allowing us to see the whole town at once, to see what people are doing in the background at any given moment. The invisibility of the walls also suggests that this film is concerned with piercing through facades, with penetrating to the heart of things. The action is framed by the narrator’s witty, incisive commentary.

Dogville is a small, secluded town onto which a “beautiful fugitive” named Grace stumbles early in the film. Grace is on the run and the ironically named Thomas Edison, Jr., who is not remotely inventive, hides her in the town’s mine while he speaks with the men looking for her. The men chasing Grace are gangsters, and their leader gives Tom his telephone number, telling him that Grace is very precious to him. Tom urges Grace to hide in Dogville, rather than attempt to flee her pursuers by way of the dangerous pass over the mountain.

Tom is an aspiring writer, who never seems to write much of anything, and a self-proclaimed moral authority. He conducts lectures for the town, which he calls Meetings on Moral Rearmament. He fantasizes of writing insightful novels and plays which will scourge and purge the human heart and mine the depths of the human soul. In other words, Tom has no job. He is a pseudo-philosopher, exclusively concerned with ideas, but unable to produce any substantial ones.

When Tom suggests that Grace stay in Dogville, Grace responds, “I’ve got nothing to offer them in return.” This suits Tom perfectly because he wishes to use Grace to illustrate what he believes is the fundamental “problem of the human condition–to receive.” The only thing Tom loves more than holding a meeting is “illustration.” He convinces the reluctant townspeople to allow Grace to stay for a trial period of two weeks.

Although Grace is not exactly warmly welcomed into Dogville, she is “fond of them all, even the folk who had greeted her with reluctance and hostility.” Her initial impression of this place is rosy: “All I see is a beautiful little town in the midst of magnificent mountains.”

To endear herself to the townspeople, Grace offers to help them with their work and chores. This proves more difficult than anticipated, as none of the townspeople want to admit that they need any help; they do not want to relinquish the myth of their self-sufficiency. Once Ma Ginger allows Grace to weed the wild gooseberry bushes, however, the other townspeople soon find things for Grace to do.

Grace is quickly incorporated into the rhythm of the town, going from house to house to help with various tasks. Everyone in the town comes to enjoy her company and appreciate her help, except Chuck. Chuck, a gruff man who works in the orchard, is averse to Grace. Chuck tells Grace, “This town is rotten from the inside out” and “People are the same all over–greedy as animals.” He continues, “Feed ’em enough, they’ll eat ’til they burst.” Chuck’s bleak view of humanity proves more and more accurate as the film progresses. The town’s name, which suggests that its residents are dogs, parallels Chuck’s comparison of human greed to an animal’s unrestrained appetite.

After the two week trial period, a vote is held to decide if Grace will be allowed to stay. She needs an unanimous vote in her favor to remain in Dogville. Various people leave gifts for Grace, anticipating that she will be cast out. Everyone votes for Grace to stay, though this turns out to be more because they have grown accustomed to having her help than out of genuine compassion for her plight. Liz, for instance, admits that she had a selfish motive for voting for Grace to stay, as it was a relief to her to no longer be the one “All the men had eyes for.” Liz has ambivalent feelings toward being the town vixen: while she is initially glad that Grace takes attention away from her, she later comes to resent the newcomer for the same reason. The narrator says, “Grace had bared her throat to the town, and it had responded with a great gift–with friends,” but this friendship turns out to be fleeting.

Grace becomes even more inveigled with the townspeople, as she acts as “eyes for McKay, a mother to Ben, friend for Vera, and brains to Bill.” Grace seems to be making the town a better, happier place, as well. At the Fourth of July picnic, McKay says to Grace, “You’ve made Dogville a wonderful place to live in.”

Grace holds Tom’s hand at the picnic, and tells him that she loves him. Tom’s affection for Grace proves to be less noble than her love for him, however. He says, “I yearn to be even closer, to touch you.” Grace gently refuses Tom’s all but spoken desire to sleep with her. She says, “The thing I love about you is that you don’t demand anything of me.” Yet, Tom only lacks the audacity to demand, not the desire.

This bliss is marred, however, when a policeman arrives to put up a missing person poster of Grace. The townspeople grow even more nervous when the police return a second time to put up a new poster–this time a wanted poster alleging that Grace committed some bank robberies. Although they know Grace could not have robbed those banks since she was in Dogville at the time, the townspeople are still uneasy about harboring her. Some of them indulge in unfounded fears about what the law will do if they find Grace in Dogville. The townspeople are purely selfish: they do not want to help a stranger in need until she demonstrates her usefulness to them, and at the first sign of possible danger to themselves, they wish to abandon Grace.

Tom tells Grace that “From a business perspective, your presence in Dogville has become more costly because it’s more dangerous for them to have you here.” Grace’s wages are cut and, as Tom proposes, she visits each house twice each day, effectively doubling her work. Even after her labor is increased, the townspeople become less satisfied with Grace. While once they had denied that there was any work she could do for them, now they are easily irritated by her mistakes. Mrs. Henson scolds her for breaking one of the glasses she is packing into crates for sale. This is deeply ironic because the Hensons, rather than make their own glasses, actually grind the edges off of cheap glasses to make them look more expensive and to sell them at higher prices. This process, of course, weakens the glasses, and so Grace’s breaking one is hardly surprising. The Hensons are typical residents of Dogville: they are industrious only about helping themselves; they make a living by profiting from trickery.

Grace makes herself vulnerable to Dogville. She comes to the town a fugitive in need, yet it takes only the posting of a wanted poster for the townspeople to turn on her. As the narrator says, she “had laid herself open, and there she dangled from her frail stalk like the apple in the Garden of Eden.”

Off-camera, Chuck tries to kiss Grace in the orchard. As they discuss it afterward, Chuck tells Grace, “I thought of blackmailing you into respecting me.” Grace is forgiving, telling Chuck “I would never hate you, never.” This ominous exchange foreshadows Chucks actions when the police return to Dogville a third time. Grace is watching Chuck and Vera’s children when Chuck comes home. With the police in the street outside, Chuck rapes Grace. Grace implores Chuck to stop, but does not struggle violently. She tries to get away from him, but does not try to maim him. She does not cry for help.

Why does Grace not resist Chuck more forcefully? It is not because she is afraid of being captured by the police. Grace’s behavior in this scene and throughout the film stems from her key character trait–her ability to forgive. Her name is apt because Grace embodies absolute mercy. She forgives every crime committed against her, and shows the greatest leniency to those who wrong her. She is mercy utterly apart from justice, and she rationalizes the wickedness perpetrated against her. As she tells Tom, after confiding that Chuck raped her, “He’s not strong, Tom. He looks strong, but he’s not.” Grace thus explains Chuck’s evil act as the result of his weakness, and forgives him. If this seems impossible for a human being, it is because Grace embodies unbounded mercy.

What is the result of Grace’s mercy on Chuck? Now every time Grace helps Chuck in the orchard, he forces himself on her. This fact reflects the film’s core insight: when wickedness is returned with mercy, and only mercy, it is impossible for the evil-doer to recognize the wickedness of his or her actions. The mercy which Grace extends to Chuck cannot be received as the mercy it is because it appears to be mere acquiescence. Chuck has no reason not to rape Grace a second time after not being punished for raping her the first time. Mercy cannot be received as mercy in a context completely absent of justice.

What about conscience? Why does Chuck’s conscience not fill him with guilt and remorse? The conscience is similar to a muscle: it only grows strong through regular exercise. Not having spent much time exercising, Chuck’s conscience has clearly atrophied. People have an incredibly capacity to ignore their consciences.

Martha sees Grace and Chuck in the orchard and she tells Chuck’s wife, Vera. Vera chooses to believe that Grace seduced her husband, rather than that her husband raped Grace. She believes that “at heart, [Chuck] is loyal, and he’s good” though he is emphatically neither of those things. Vera revenges herself on Grace by destroying Grace’s beloved porcelain figurines. Grace had purchased the figurines with the money she earned by working for the townspeople. Even more sadistically, Vera promises to only destroy two of the seven figurines if Grace can act stoically and withhold her tears. Grace fails to do so, and Vera smashes all seven. As the narrator comments, “The figurines were the offspring of the meeting of the town and [Grace]. They were the proof, in spite of everything, that her suffering had created something of value.”

Grace resolves to leave Dogville. She hides in Ben’s truck, while he makes his regular trip to Georgetown to sell the town’s apples. Although Grace pays Ben ten dollars, which she gets from Tom, once they get out of Dogville he wants a “surcharge” for carrying “dangerous cargo.” Ben is ostensibly worried about being caught by the police, but really is trying to blackmail Grace. Ben says, “I have to take due payment, that’s all,” as if he would be remiss by not coercing her into sleeping with him. Grace softly protests, but allows Ben to have his way with her.

Just when it seems that Grace has been humiliated and victimized as much as possible, just when it seems that she has finally escaped Dogville, Grace awakens back in Dogville. Ben’s betrayal is double–he reneges on his promise to carry Grace away from the town. He claims that Grace hid on his truck. Tom does nothing.

The townspeople believe that Grace stole ten dollars from Tom’s father, Thomas Edison, Sr., although it was Tom who took the money from his father’s medicine cabinet. Afraid that his father would not give it to him, Tom took the money, and then blamed it on Grace. The narrator explains, “Grace chose to remain silent in the face of these new charges.” Grace does not seek to defend herself against the false accusations. She is willing to endure any reproach, any slander, any humiliation. She never seeks reprisal against those who wrong her. What the film inexorably shows, however, is that Grace’s superhuman endurance and constant forgiveness of those who victimize her does not actually help them realize their wickedness. Without punishment or the realistic threat of punishment, the townspeople simply believe they are in the right. They resort to greater and greater evil because they never encounter any deterrence. Mercy only inspires remorse and repentance in a context where justice is a viable possibility.

Grace’s debasement and dehumanization reach their nadir when the townspeople put an iron collar around her neck. A chain extends from the collar to a large weight to restrict Grace’s movement and a bell is attached to the collar to prevent her from sneaking off. Not only is this horrifyingly cruel treatment of a human being, but it would be an absurd punishment even if Grace were guilty of theft, which she is not. This essentially makes Grace the town’s slave. Revealing how deluded the townspeople are about their own wickedness, Tom, Sr. says, “Don’t think of this as punishment, not at all,” and consoles Grace by telling her that they made the chain long enough for her to be able to sleep in her bed, as if forcing her to sleep on the ground would be unthinkable.

At this point, if not well before, all but the most deranged viewer will be filled with rage and grief at the people of Dogville. Their treatment of Grace is as reprehensible as can be imagined. Yet, Grace herself never protests. As the narrator explains, Grace becomes numb, entering “the trance-like state that descends on animals whose lives are threatened . . . like a patient passively letting his disease hold sway.” It is not Grace who is diseased, but the people of Dogville. Rather than perform surgery to remove the town’s tumor, however, Grace allows the disease to continue unabated. And things only get worse for her.

With Grace chained up like an animal, children throw mud into her bed. Even more disturbingly, “Most townspeople of the male sex now visited Grace at night to fulfill their sexual needs. The harassments in bed did not have to be kept so secret any more because they couldn’t really be compared to a sexual act. They were embarrassing in the way it is when a hillbilly has his way with a cow, but no more than that.” Grace is made the common sex slave of the men of the town, who have so dehumanized her as to be unable to recognize the criminality of their abuse. Grace is now treated even worse than an animal.

Even Tom fails to help Grace. Not even this seemingly unbearable level of debasement rouses Tom’s indignation. The narrator explains, “Tom saw everything. It pained him. And the sexual visits were a particularly severe blow. But he supported [Grace] as best he could.” The irony is that Tom’s pain is due to the fact that other men are sleeping with Grace, rather than him. If he truly cared about Grace he would stand watch outside her room, ensuring that no one entered it at night, or publicly decry their actions, or try to free Grace from her chains and abscond with her over the mountains. Yet, Tom, growing more despicable and pathetic in every scene, does nothing.

What does Tom do? Tom really only knows how to do one thing–hold a meeting. Tom wants to hold a meeting during which Grace will tell the townspeople the truth. He compares them to children unwilling to take their medicine, and believes that they will “realize that this web of misunderstanding and injustice has only one victim” and that is Grace.

They hold the meeting, and Grace addresses the group. The film does not relate what Grace says to emphasize how little the townspeople are willing to listen. The failure of Tom’s meeting to appeal to “consciences stowed farther and farther away by their owners every day,” as the narrator says, establishes that one cannot necessarily convince a person that he or she is immoral. People are exceptionally skilled at justifying their actions, no matter how disgusting or hurtful. As Tom tells the townspeople, “I asked you here to listen, but you came only to defend yourselves.” Warped by selfishness and self-deception, people are fully capable of rejecting the truth. No seminar will convince people of their capacity for evil.

Tom leaves the meeting to report to Grace on how it is going. He tells her that the townspeople are not convinced, and declares his loyalty to her–“I’ve chosen, Grace; I’ve chosen you.” He seems to think that such a protestation of fealty–though it has no correlative in his actions–will make Grace swoon with desire for him. Although she is clearly exhausted, Tom tries to get romantic with Grace. He wants to sleep with her, but she only wants them to “meet in freedom.” Tom is a bit annoyed, saying “I’ve just rejected everybody I’ve ever known in your favor. Wouldn’t it be worth compromising just one of your ideals, just a little, to ease my pain. Everybody in this town has had your body but me. We’re the ones supposed to be in love.” Tom’s selfishness is utterly astounding. After all that Grace has endured, Tom has the gall to speak to her about easing his “pain.” His lust for her is so disgusting because he ignores the horror of her treatment. Tom is just as selfish as everyone else. Though he does not force himself on Grace as the other men do, he badly wants to sleep with her. With an incomprehensible lack of compassion, Tom laments the fact that other men have slept with Grace while he has not, instead of grieving the humiliation Grace she experienced. In this scene, Tom manages the insanely selfish feat of interpreting the number of times Grace has been raped as evidence of his own deprivation.

Tom leaves Grace and, after returning to the meeting to consult with the other townspeople, he calls the gangster. Although he told Grace he burned the card with the gangster’s telephone number on it, he did not. After five days of anticipation among the townspeople, the gangsters arrive. Tom locks Grace in her shed, thinking it will look better to the gangsters if it appears that they have captured Grace. The extent of Tom’s disloyalty to Grace is apparent when he disingenuously tells the gangsters, “None of us feel able to accept money for just helping people.”

The gangsters are shocked to find Grace chained up. Grace enters one of the cars to speak with the boss, who turns out to be her father.

Grace and her father engage in a robust discussion rich with theological implications. We discover that the gangsters were not trying to kill Grace, but rather to bring her back to her father. Grace ran away from home because she disapproved of her father’s violent methods. Upon their reunion, Grace’s father critiques her policy of mercy: “You do not pass judgment because you sympathize with them. A deprived childhood, and a homicide really isn’t necessarily a homicide, right? The only thing you can blame is circumstance. Rapists and murderers may be the victims according to you. But I call them dogs, and if they’re lapping up their own vomit, the only way to stop them is with a lash.”

According to Grace’s father, Grace is too sympathetic. She excuses evil with recourse to the circumstances, such as a “deprived childhood,” which condition people to do wrong. While Grace admirably is able to understand that even the most despicable people–rapists and murderers–have typically been victimized themselves, her merely excusing their behavior because she understands it falls short of justice. What Grace fails to realize is that her approach involves more than her own victimization. By refusing to resist the evil directed against her, she allows the townspeople to slip ever more rapidly into wickedness. Grace gives the people of Dogville the opportunity to enact their most shameful desires, desires which were, before her arrival, buried in the subterranean depths of the unconscious. Apparently typical humans at the beginning of the film, the townspeople have degraded themselves–through Grace’s passivity–to the level of dogs by its end.

Grace’s father argues that discipline is the only way to stop a dog from returning to its vomit. Grace’s father’s image of dogs returning to their own vomit evokes 2 Peter 2:22, as well as Chuck’s earlier description of people as being “greedy as animals” who will “eat ’til they burst” if allowed to do so.

Grace is not yet convinced, however, by her father’s arguments. She responds, “But dogs only obey their own nature, so why shouldn’t we forgive them?” Grace touches on the paradox of sin and responsibility in Christian theology: if people are sinful, then how can God hold anyone responsible for doing evil? Is it not unjust for God to hold people to standards they cannot possibly meet? The Old Testament is unequivocal that humanity’s inherited sinful nature does not negate its responsibility for its actions. Deuteronomy 24:16 says, “Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.” Yet, such passages condemn the stubborn refusal to repent and turn away from evil. God abhors not those who sin, for he, like Grace, fully understands the chain of victimization and abuse that leads people to do evil, but those who perpetually return to their sins–like a dog to its vomit.

Grace’s father’s reply continues in the vein of comparing people to dogs: “Dogs can be taught many useful things, but not if we forgive them every time they obey their own nature.” A savage, wild dog may be free from the commands of its master, but it is not free from rabies and starvation. Likewise, discipline is required to teach people not to do wrong. This is most obviously true when trying to teach children, but is equally applicable to cultivating virtue in adults. Merely forgiving a person for every evil act, or telling him or her the right thing to do is insufficient because of human selfishness. Dogs do not learn to sit or stay or not to bite people by suggestion; they learn through discipline. People cannot be taught to heed commands other than their own desires unless they are punished for doing wrong. Grace’s father’s position is essentially that of Proverbs 13:24: “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” (See also Proverbs 22:15).

Grace’s father’s position recalls the prophetic books of the Old Testament. God is most angry with the Israelites when they consistently refuse to heed the rebuke of the prophets: “And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips” (Jeremiah 7:28). In Jeremiah 31:18, Israel is compared to a calf, “I have heard Ephraim grieving, ‘You have disciplined me, and I was disciplined, like an untrained calf; bring me back that I may be restored, for you are the LORD my God” (See also Jeremiah 30:11). People need to be trained to be good. This disciplinary logic is taken up in the New Testament, as well: “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6). The portrayal of God’s wrath as discipline reflects the doctrine of God’s love for humanity: if God was not loving, he would hardly care what kind of damage people inflict on each other.

Even with the opportunity to return with her father, to share his power and responsibility, Grace initially chooses to remain in Dogville. She believes that “The people who live here are doing their best under very hard circumstances.” Grace even goes so far as to think that she would have acted just as Tom, Chuck, Vera, and the others did toward her were she in their places. The narrator poses the key point as Grace sees it, “How could she ever hate them for what was, at bottom, their weakness?” Grace rightly understands that human nature is imperfect. She realizes that people commit evil deeds out of weakness, whether fear or anger or greed. It takes strength to be virtuous. From her father’s perspective, however, understanding the causality of evil does not excuse it. Grace absolves the townspeople of moral agency, whereas her father insists that people be held accountable for their actions.

Grace pities the townspeople, rather than truly loving them. Since doing evil corrupts the evil-doer as much as it harms the victim, loving them would entail forcibly preventing them from destroying themselves through their wicked actions.

As Grace contemplates the townspeople, she has an epiphany. The narrator explains, “If she had acted like them, she could not have defended a single one of her actions, and could not have condemned them harshly enough. No, what they had done was not good enough.” Grace ultimately decides that “If there’s any town this world would be better off without, then this is it.” She joins her father and has the gangsters execute the townspeople and set fire to the town.

Grace instructs them to shoot Vera’s children in front of her, refraining only if Vera can withhold her tears. She thus reciprocates Vera’s treatment of her: as Vera destroyed Grace’s figurines, promising to stop at two if Grace refrained from crying, so Grace gives Vera a taste of her own medicine. As Vera destroyed Grace’s seven figurines, so the gangsters kill Vera’s seven children.

As he watches Dogville burn around him, Tom tells Grace, “I was scared, Grace. I used you and I’m sorry.” Yet, Tom’s apology, and his lack of genuine remorse, is utterly inadequate to the magnitude of his betrayal. As always, he rationalizes his own failures and pursues a policy of protecting his own interests. Even after seeing all of his peers shot to death, Tom does not register the horror of what he has done to Grace. Tom is too proud to admit to being wrong, which leads to his self-deception. This prevents him from noticing his own flaws, which makes contrition and repentance impossible.

Grace shoots Tom in the head herself.

Why does Grace destroy Dogville completely? Why not imprison the townspeople or force them to do hard labor? Why are the men, women, and children alike put to death? The film shows exhaustively that everyone in Dogville is guilty of abusing Grace: the men rape her; the women verbally abuse her and condone their husbands’ behavior; even the children, particularly Vera’s son, Jason, mistreat her. Everyone must be killed, not only because they deserve death for their crimes, but also because if punishment is always withheld, then mercy ceases to be mercy. If people can imagine no possibility other than forgiveness, then active forgiveness becomes passive acquiescence.  

The narrator gives another reason why Dogville must be destroyed: “And if one had the power to put it to rights, it was one’s duty to do so. For the sake of other towns. For the sake of humanity. And, not least, for the sake of the human being that was Grace herself.” People learn by example.

Dogville reveals that justice and mercy are interdependent: justice is merciful because it prevents people from sinking deeper into corruption; mercy cannot be perceived or received as the grace that it is in a context absent of justice.