Manderlay (2005)

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Director:

Lars von Trier

Writer:

Lars von Trier (written by)

Release Date:

3 June 2005 (Denmark)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

A case of mistaken identity

Plot:

A story of slavery, set in the 1930s American South.

Plot Keywords:

Slavery | Gangster | Democracy | Cotton | 1930s

Awards:

1 win & 15 nominations

Cast

Bryce Dallas Howard	...	Grace Margaret Mulligan
Isaach De Bankolé	...	Timothy
Danny Glover	...	Wilhelm
Willem Dafoe	...	Grace's Father
Michaël Abiteboul	...	Thomas
Lauren Bacall	...	Mam
Jean-Marc Barr	...	Mr. Robinsson
Geoffrey Bateman	...	Bertie
Virgile Bramly	...	Edward
Ruben Brinkmann	...	Bingo (as Ruben Brinkman)
Doña Croll	...	Venus (as Dona Croll)
Jeremy Davies	...	Niels
Llewella Gideon	...	Victoria
Mona Hammond	...	Old Wilma
Ginny Holder	...	Elisabeth

Also Known As:

Manderlay (France) (Germany)
The Film 'Manderlay' as Told in Eight Straight Chapters (USA) (long title)

Runtime:

139 min

Country:

Denmark | Sweden | Netherlands | France | Germany | UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Philippines:R-18 | Finland:K-15 | Sweden:11 | Germany:12 | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Brazil:16 | Czech Republic:15 | UK:15 | Italy:VM14 | Japan:R-18 | Hong Kong:III | Singapore:R21 | Hungary:16 | Canada:14A (Ontario) (Canadian Home Video rating) | Netherlands:12 | Australia:MA | South Korea:18 | Portugal:M/16 | USA:Not Rated | New Zealand:M

Filming Locations:

Denmark

Company:

Zentropa Entertainments

Trivia:

When Vibeke Windeløv went to the US for casting, she got a tip that Danny Glover might be interested. She immediately flew to a hotel in Salt Lake to meet up with him. After a long talk about the project, Glover asked her for a copy of Dogville (2003). She gave him a portable DVD-player with it and left him for the night. At 6:00 AM, Glover called her hotel room and said she had to come immediately because the DVD-player's battery had run out 20 minutes before the end of the movie. She rushed to his room with a charger and after he'd watch it through he said yes on the spot.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Narrator: It was in the year of 1933, when Grace and her father were heading southward with their army of gangsters.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Cannes Experience: Manderlay 2005 (2005) (V)

Soundtrack:

Young Americans

Trier's follow-up to the masterful Dogville hurls more impassioned invective toward the same targets, and gives us another masterpiece in the process

Well, the boy on the till told me that I was in for a treat when I bought my ticket, and that wasn't just salesmanship. It's very much Dogville Part 2; formally, it's at least as good. Thematically, politically, etc. it's an attempt to sustain an attack on the US government's adventures abroad. It looks like Trier's opportunity to experience America for himself has gone, since he's so scathing in his criticism of recent US foreign policy, while also prodding at the country's racist past and present like a finger prodding at a loose tooth, trying to aggravate the nerve enough to make something give, that they'll never allow him through immigration.

Something occurred to me while I was watching Manderlay that I hadn't thought about in Dogville: those vertical shots that show a top-down view of the town are again present, and it's very much like the view you'd expect God to have of the world, if you believed in Biblical dogma. It really hammered home the idea of this mastermind playing with his characters like pawns on a chessboard, and while the drama of the main narrative is extremely powerful on its own, he's really encouraging us to look beyond those characters and to see the man behind them, and what he's trying to show us with this story. Once again, you've got John Hurt's cynical, sarcastic and sneering narration to bring you out of the story and suggest further subtexts. I defy anyone to take these films at face value. If they do, then they're either very small children or they're not paying enough attention, or refusing to see the obvious.

Like Dogville (or any other LVT film), it's a very heavy-handed film. Grace arrives in Manderlay with her gangster daddy, sees that black people are still working as slaves for Lauren Bacall's "Mam", and resolves to turn things around. With a bit of help from some of daddy's best boys, she boots out the dictator, gives the slaves their freedom, and assumes that her work is done. Sounding familiar yet? Of course, the now ex-slaves aren't ready to accept their freedom, so Grace pleads with daddy to let her stay for a while and teach them how to live in a free, democratic society. Things don't work out as planned. I'll let you find out the rest for yourself.

One thing that this film reinforces is that LVT is a fearless, fearless film-maker. He drives his actors to emotional extremes, and then sticks a camera right on their face so that we don't miss a drop of pain. He lets his camera drift in and out of focus so it feels like you're watching the movie through beer goggles, sometimes, and he completely flaunts conventional verisimilitude. He peels back the layers of cinema like he peels back the layers of his characters' emotions until you're looking at nothing but a tear-stained face against a pitch black screen. He screws with your perceptions of characters, building them up as heroes, only to reveal their repulsive selves when you're feeling at your most vulnerable. Why? Perhaps because he actually has something that he wants to say, and he doesn't want you to forget it in a hurry. Oh my god, could this be someone who actually wants to change things with his art? I think so, and he's essential to cinema right now for that reason.

There is the sense that he gets off on torturing his characters, on putting them through hell and then leaving us to deal with the emotional fall-out. John Hurt's narrator makes a snide comment about Grace, once the cotton harvest has begun, about her having nothing to think about now but human emotions, and it's almost as though LVT is saying that we should be ashamed of expecting any respite from the political and humanitarian guilt we're experiencing because of the film, that he could just as easily give us the gratification of a morose film about how hopeless we are as individuals, but he is offering us the opportunity to experience real empathy. He knows how good he is, how smart he is, and his occasional smugness can be irritating, but he believes in his message 100%, and it shouldn't be forgotten how important a strong, focused viewpoint is.

He seems to be saying that humans individually are weak, but en masse they will find ways of coping which allow them to live comfortably, and modestly, and the kind of arrogance displayed by the First World is symptomatic of our greed, that we want everybody else to live like us, whether they want to or not. Freedom or else.

A brilliant, brave film from a frighteningly intelligent artist. Whether he'd make a good politician or not, though; I'm still undecided.