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If the film with which Lars von Trier disconcerted the world once again (after Breaking the Waves, The Idiots or Dancer in the Dark but before Antichrist or Melancholia) constituted a true narrative tour de force, by developing stories in counterpoint on squares of a board -a maximally abstract reality- with the common denominator of the suffering pawn protagonist, Grace, in Sílvia Munt and Pau Miró's theater version we find, along with the well-known stage, audiovisual resources that cinematically delocalize the plot in foreign landscapes, impeccably reversing the logic of the Danish creator. For, with all that, the drama is maintained in the most extreme sense, one that sharpens urgent questions -already in the middle of the last century- and that postmodernity has not managed to completely disguise: what meaning do we give to the word Humanism? Does it perhaps possess an intrinsic value, does it refer to some principle of universal respect? And, undoubtedly the most arduous: if so, how to apply it, without falling into the prioritization of particular interest?
Virginia (Bruna Cusí) flees from a powerful man, seeks refuge in the first place she finds in that "any town" -as the subtitle of the Teatre Lliure version accurately states- called Dogville. As everywhere, the Bar is the meeting place, a confluence of different characters, who come to find distraction. Beyond the passages filmed outdoors, and those captured by a fixed camera installed in the doorframe of the premises -in the style of security cameras- which shows what happens inside/outside, in the transit between the two areas, beyond those projections -we were saying- everything happens in the different rooms of that establishment. There Virginia will meet, among others, the idealistic and enlightened Max (David Verdaguer), the town's irascible teacher (Auréa Márquez) and her young and tyrannical offspring. Also the husband and father (Josep Julien) of both, whom she recognizes as somewhat primitive, and the old man who hides his blindness (Lluis Marco) and pretends to see things as they are, inspiredly obstinate in his belief.
In the trance of being helped by someone who asks for nothing, who in their transparency only acts as a mirror, the imperfections, insecurities, desires, traumas of the characters will inevitably surface.The characters interact with the protagonist with suspicion, while she tries to win their trust by offering disinterested collaboration. Using a falsely objective resource such as the voice-over, Lars von Trier had recreated with surgical precision the externalization of repressed, encysted, or socially accepted instincts in all of them. They emerge in the film asfumatablack in the face of Grace's charitable action, a female character obviously related to those ofBreaking the WavesandDancing in the Dark. The theatrical version ofDogvillecannot offer that same degree of detail, but it emphasizes the false naturalness of the speeches of those who do not really tolerate the consequences of the pact. For in the trance of being helped by someone who asks for nothing -in their virginal transparencyonlyacts as a mirror - the imperfections, insecurities, desires, traumas of the characters will inevitably surface.
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CYNICISM, IMPASSIBLE CONCERN FOR THE HUMAN
There are many passages worth recovering, such as when the character of Gloria (a wonderful Anna Güell) states, lapidarily: "we are very good people, especially if you have a bad memory." Likewise, and perhaps above all, one of the lines that closes the play deserves to be highlighted - "fear justifies everything" - insofar as it illustrates the cynicism that predominates in that microcosm. Cynicism was defined by Peter Sloterdijk in his first great work as "falsely enlightened consciousness," a form of lucidity that renounces truth while not hesitating to self-interestedly impose its own criterion as universal. Gloria's statement is, in this sense, unequivocal: with "fresh" moral notions, there is no way to sustain that supposed goodness. Something different happens when strange and uncontrollable factors - fear, for example - "weaken" the memory of what is universally good. The blind man's statement seems to paraphrase, in turn, the diagnosis of the character in Albert Camus's The Fall, a former judge who recognizes the human propensity to blame all humanity in order to save oneself.
Even Max, who boasts of openness and a clear gaze -having been the first to put himself in the place of the outsider, of the persecuted- will fall into moral ambiguity because of the uncertainties derived from his emotional connection, which raises an uncomfortable question: is it really possible to give fair treatment -that is, disinterested- to one whose love is longed for, sensing it is not entirely reciprocated? Immanuel Kant spoke of the "obstacles of human nature" to refer precisely to the series of empirical conditioning factors (interests, inclinations, and of course emotions) that usually affect our moral praxis, and which should be transcended in the truly legitimate act, in accordance with principles of universal validity. Although it may seem paradoxical, contradiction is lurking -it stands out flagrantly, in a special way- in one who most vehemently defends the principles of the Enlightenment, principles that affirm the equality and inalienable freedom of all human beings.
Well, in reality, anyone who upholds principles or wants to defend values is condemned to contradict themselves more than the cynic, who gains strength from the self-satisfied confession of their moral ubiquity, a bit like Karamazov ("if God does not exist, everything is permitted"). In Dogville, the open secret that modernity generally overlooked, or at most hid under the rug of that Kantian expression, is spread. That man's tendency -as Thomas Hobbes had already warned in a less aseptic way- is not to protect the defenseless, but to use various means, among which force, to prosper according to the demands of instincts or the most "reasonable" desires, which does not exclude taking advantage of the kindness of others: homo homini lupus. The animal chosen in Trier's fiction is the mammal most loyal to man, and therefore the one most intensely in the position of suffering his mistreatment, as the colloquialism llevar vida de perro (to lead a dog's life) reminds us. An expression that applies to illustrate an existence that is a victim of clearly unjustifiable setbacks, like those experienced by the protagonist of Dogville.
Even if the viewer familiar with the film may miss Trier's raw and obscene proximity -as well as that manipulative voice-over- a comparable point of imposture is perceived in the voices of the theatrical characters, who articulate a choral and yet deeply anti-humanist truth.Lars von Trier's Grace (Nicole Kidman) chooses to silently endure all humiliations, while in Sílvia Munt and Pau Miró's version, she herself, "Virginia," certainly appears more vehement and rebellious, despite the reminiscence -in her name- to an original purity. Even if the viewer familiar with the film may miss nuances in the Teatre Lliure's version -Trier's raw and obscene proximity, as well as that fascinating and manipulativevoice-over- a comparable point of imposture is perceived in the voices of the characters, who with outstanding performances articulate a choral truth that is nevertheless deeply anti-humanist. Intermittently, as the plot progresses, they make asides: particular interviews in front of the audience, as if it were a documentary - a resource, by the way, that Lars von Trier himself applied inThe Idiots- and in which they speak retrospectively of the turbulent trail left by the foreigner. A resource that, however, we could by no means find in the film version, for obvious reasons for those who know it and which we will briefly recall.
BACK TO THE SAINT AND THE SINNER
Before that, it is almost obligatory to mention Temps Salvatge -a play by Josep Maria Miró programmed last season at the TNC- for its similar recreation of a community gripped by fear at the presence of someone strange, and in which a young woman plays a fundamental role. And this despite the fact that the protagonists, who in both cases orchestrate and condition the affections of the characters around them, would seem antithetical. One is close to the role of the saint, giving herself to everyone unconditionally -something especially appreciable in Trier's heroine, as we said- while the other is the radical nonconformist, who recklessly provokes and squeezes the experiences that life offers her while exploiting the cracks of hypocrisy of adults. In fact, Virginia would seem to be between the two, as she begins as a rebel and never completely loses that exalted and even aggressive temperament, which she applies against herself. The profile of the original character (Grace) is closer to that of Joan of Arc who lets herself die, and whose martyrdom Lars von Trier obviously knew through the version of his admired Carl T. Dreyer. Suffering is the price they all pay for provoking the emergence of what could not be said or heard, for having acted as reflective mirrors of the most unpleasant inner reality.
If it strikes the aesthetic experience of injustice, it is because it reminds the viewer that in real life too, returns to "Dogville" - with variations, of course - take place. And unlike what happens in fiction, relationships of submission do not always find some kind of end or resolution. The main discrepancy between Trier's work and Munt and Miró's interesting version lies precisely in their respective endings. While in the film, with the arrival of the Father (the mysterious man from whom Grace was fleeing at the beginning), a dramatic turn occurs that completely and forever overturns the order of things in the place referred to as Dogville, in the theatrical version, that "any town" continues its journey without substantially modifying the dynamic, despite the intrusion of Virginia and the death of Max, the closest thing to an innocent being in the dog's city. Film buffs will recall, on the other hand, what happens to Grace, after all the humiliations inflicted by the resourceful inhabitants.
The viewer breathes, relieved: justice has been done, after all. But the relief, the emotional release provided by this falsely redemptive ending, simultaneously suggests an extreme degree of perversion.And what happens is that she makes a click, a kind of epiphany. Faced with his father's metaphorically empty offer, consisting of "burning the town" -it is recalled at the Teatre Lliure-, he realizes that yes, injustice exists, and that it cannot be tolerated; that in some way assuming it firsthand, respecting it, makes its perpetuation possible and turns the victim into an accomplice. The almighty father, a textbook gangster -hated/loved father, according to the best Freudian tradition- will eradicate all forms of life from the town with bullets, saving only the dog. The spectator breathes,relievedjustice has been done, after all. But therelief, the emotional release brought by this falsely redemptive ending simultaneously suggests a supreme degree of perversion, perpetrated by the disturbing alchemist that Lars von Trier has so often proven to be.
The viewer goes from suffering alongside Grace -that idea of empathy inherent in Christian, charitable love, which accepts humbling oneself and carrying the weight of the other- to feeling, like Grace herself, convinced of the pertinence of a mass murder. A savage change of perspective that challenges the viewer / accomplice and shakes them on the other side of the screen, only comparable to what Stanley Kubrick provoked, decades ago, with A Clockwork Orange. After a first part of debauchery, with repulsive examples of so-called "ultraviolence," in the second part of the film the criminal, in the process of reformation, becomes a victim of subhuman experiments and also of his ex-accomplices. The viewer can understand that indeed the protagonist, named Alex, brought it upon himself; or can also empathize, and feel pity for his state. In both cases, he is affected by unexpected emotions, and compelled to review his moral criteria, however little conscious he may be.
TIMELESS AND UBIQUITOUS DIALECTIC
As a result of her stay in Dogville, Grace seems to have learned a lesson regarding moral distinctions, who knows if traumatically. For her didactic will, her eagerness to bring the true meaning of good -freedom and justice- to the lives of men and women will play a trick on her in Manderlay -second part of Trier's trilogy- when, a victim of anger, she ends up sadistically flagellating the cynical but desired slave, delving into the problematic inherent in humanism that Max (Tom, in the film version) suffered in Dogville. Both films stage with the minimum of narrative resources and maximizing the expressions of the actors -according to the theatrical mode but with filmic possibilities, thanks to the variety of shots and editing- the critical discourse that some twentieth-century thinkers have poured against the excessively optimistic presumptions of the Enlightenment.
In the context of the Second World War, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer recall, in their Dialectic of Enlightenment, that the project of liberating and improving the human race through Reason had failed; therefore, it was only credible as a myth, from a faith or trust similar to that which brought inequalities and could not prevent the armed disaster. In vain, Nietzsche had already denounced, before, the pragmatic aspect of reason, inevitably placed at the service of particular interests, and therefore a servant of the instinctive, as Sade also knew, to whom Adorno and Horkheimer also turn to sharpen the distrust in an entirely rational form of salvation. In fact, the authors of that classic work consider Sade's and Nietzsche's ruthless doctrines to be more "merciful" than bienpensant morality for having proclaimed "the identity of reason and domination," that is, for having anticipated the appropriation of the meaning of reality through a type of instrumental reason, which basically thinks in terms of efficiency and profit.
Pragmatically oriented, that thought resembles - from a distance and a justified suspicion - what Martin Heidegger called "calculative thinking" in his communication Serenity. He too, in the late 1940s, had sought to redefine the meaning of Humanism in dialogue with Jean Beaufret, from the critique of technology and its application to human affairs. In the 1966 interview granted to Der Spiegel, he would state that the place where man inhabits "is no longer the earth," after referring to the image of the planet seen from the Moon (a black and white photograph, not the best known, already in color, from December 1968). The uprooting from the surrounding world, the rarefaction of interpersonal relationships and of the individual with himself constitutes the inhospitable reality (Das Unheimliche is the noun used by Heidegger in the interview, translatable as "the uncanny") that Dogville stages. In addition to hitting the mark with the counterpoint interventions of the actors, the Teatre Lliure version is undoubtedly interesting - let's remember - for making explicit the timeless and ubiquitous character of this fable, which takes place "in any town."
The risk of remaining installed in criticism, no longer only in an a priori idea of truth or justice, is warned by Adorno in Minima moralia: "for those who do not conform there is the danger that they consider themselves better than others and that they use their criticism of society as an ideology in the service of their private interest."The precision neutralizes any temptation to believe (want to) identify a concrete and exclusive context -as Lars von Trier himself pointed out, in fact, with the title of his trilogy:USA- Land of Opportunities- and save oneselfsomeoneof the possibility of corruption, of alienation from the world or from oneself. The risk of becoming pleasantly settled in criticism, no longer just in an a priori idea of truth or justice -as happens to Grace inManderlay-, is warned by Adorno in a period close to the time of writing the work conceived together with Horkheimer. InMinima moralia, a compendium of essayistic passages that already reveal the lines of his philosophy and his negative aesthetics, states: "for those who do not conform there is the danger of being considered better than others and of using their criticism of society as an ideology at the service of their private interest. While trying to make their own existence a pale image of righteous existence, they should always keep that paleness in mind and know how little such an image represents righteous life." Certainly, in the enlightened pretension, as in critical thought, those "obstacles of human nature" that distort the best intentions can infiltrate.
The perception of inhumanity as underlying the human, in such an intimate and distant proximity, is sensed as unbearable. But, possibly, only from that dark reverse, keeping it present and not obstructing its unpleasant reality, can the exceptionality of the human being be valued in its proper measure -beyond all measure-. We conclude with a second quote from Minima moralia, appropriate insofar as it ratifies the critical scenario -the need for the critique of critique, or of a form of re-enlightenment that avoids cynicism- opening up, however, to the possible usefulness of thought and of the work of art that seeks to foster it, rather than to please or console: "there is no longer any beauty or consolation except for the gaze that, turning to horror, confronts it and, in the unattenuated consciousness of negativity, affirms the possibility of the better."