Kidman's sufferings may deliver Cannes Palme d'Or

The Danish director Lars von Trier's extraordinary film, Dogville, is being tipped to take home the Palme d'Or from this year's Cannes film festival after receiving a rapturous reception at its world premiere yesterday.

Dogville stars Nicole Kidman as an enigmatic stranger who shelters from gangsters in a small American town and becomes the townspeople's slave and eventually their sex toy. It has provoked furious condemnation from critics who objected to the suffering that Von Trier heaps on his protagonist.

Von Trier's Golden Hearts trilogy of films attracted similar controversy. In Breaking the Waves, one woman becomes a whore as a sacrifice to God; a grieving woman joins some anarchistic pranksters in The Idiots; and a third woman is hanged after being falsely convicted of murder in his 2000 Palme d'Or winner Dancer in the Dark.

Von Trier said yesterday regarding the suffering of women in his films: "I don't think it's as interesting to have men who are tortured, but that's a personal thing."

He also qualified earlier published comments that the film was anti-American. The director, who is terrified of flying, has never been to the United States and was criticised when Dancer in the Dark came out for vilifying a nation he had not visited.

"I feel like an American, actually," Von Trier said. "Ich bin ein American, but I would like to start a Free America campaign, since we just had a Free Iraq campaign. I would also love to go there, but right now I don't think American culture is how it should be."

Inspired by theatrical conventions, particularly Thornton Wilder's Our Town and the Royal Shakespeare Company's version of Nicholas Nickleby, Dogville is set on a stage that is nearly bare, with chalk marks on the floor. A few props and pictures denote the mountain town of Dogville, including a chalked-on dog on the floor.

A stellar ensemble of talents portray the town's inhabitants, including Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzara, Paul Bettany, Chloe Sevigny and Stellan Skarsgard. An unseen John Hurt narrates the story, which is broken up into nine chapters, each introduced by a 19th-century style précis of the events about to be portrayed. James Caan plays a gangster in the film's final act.

Kidman, who must now be a leading candidate for an acting prize in Cannes, plays Grace, a frightened and seemingly passive but intelligent woman on the run who is allowed to stay in exchange for services rendered. These are, at first, innocent, but become more sinister.

Eventually she is raped by two of the men, and when she tries to escape the townspeople shackle her neck with a dog collar and chain the collar to a rusty tyre. The climax of the film hinges on whether the ironically named Grace will seek revenge or forgive her tormentors.

At a press conference - where the usually scrupulously image-conscious Kidman lit a cigarette, seemingly to calm her nerves - the actress revealed that it was Breaking the Waves that made her so keen to work with Von Trier. When he later offered her the script for Dogville she signed at once.

But realising she would have to wear the shackle-and-tyre contraption made the first week of rehearsal "tricky", Kidman said. "We went out in the woods and had a heart-to-heart," she laughed nervously. "It was a really difficult few hours, but we came out of it with a very pure commitment to each other."

After much jocular goading on stage from Von Trier, Kidman affirmed her commitment to appearing in his next movie, Manderlay, which will be the second instalment in his latest trilogy of films, US and A, each of which will centre on Kidman's character, Grace.

Kidman said she liked to do "projects that challenge me, that involve travelling", adding: "I like to put my weight behind directors that interest me." She noted that she does not expect to do film work for the rest of her life. "Probably when I fall in love, that's when I'll stop doing as much," she said.

The jury, which is led by the French director Patrice Chereau and includes the actress Meg Ryan and the director Steven Soderbergh, will announce the winner of the Palme d'Or on Saturday.