Let's talk about form first, then. It has been eight years since von Trier's Dogme 95 manifesto declared that it was time to abandon Hollywood traditions and make movies by a set of strict rules. While the Dogme movement is still producing compelling cinema, van Trier himself has long moved on to experiment further with form and style.
In "Dogville," the set of the 1930s American town is entirely constructed on a soundstage, with marks on the floor indicating houses, street names, and gooseberry bushes. Props like desks and chairs stand on the otherwise bare stage, which is properly lit, and the actors' movements are enhanced with the sounds you'd expect. The effect of this contained environment is theatrical and calls to mind Thornton Wilder's Our Town -- most of the staging happens in the audience's minds.
The result of the artificial setting is similar to Bertolt's Brecht V-effect: we are constantly reminded that what we're seeing is fake, and it gives the unfolding events the aura of universality. Van Trier, it becomes clear, is telling us an allegory.
Von Trier's stories have often been studies in cruelty and humiliation, inflicted on a female main character.
