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Manderlay

Manderlay (2005)

May. 16,2005
|
7.2
| Drama

In 1933, after leaving Dogville, Grace Margaret Mulligan sees a slave being punished at a cotton farm called Manderlay. Officially, slavery is illegal and Grace stands up against the farmers. She stays with some gangsters in Manderlay and tries to influence the situation. But when harvest time comes, Grace sees the social and economic reality of Manderlay.

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Karry
2005/05/16

Best movie of this year hands down!

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GurlyIamBeach
2005/05/17

Instant Favorite.

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Adeel Hail
2005/05/18

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

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Derrick Gibbons
2005/05/19

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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alexdeleonfilm
2005/05/20

Lars von Trier's latest was in competition at Valladolid, 2006, where it shared the Best film Golden Spike award with Hanekes's "Caché Basic Plot: A gangster on the run from northern justice in 1930 finds a hiding place in Alabama at the Manderlay cotton plantation still being run under slavery rules, called Mam's law."Manderlay" is the quirky Dane's pseudo-American successor to "Dogville", From a purely personal point of view I must say that I regard Von Trier films as an acquired taste (like poison) which I have never acquired -- in fact I have always found them rather revolting and have never been able to sit through one of his schizzy nightmares from beginning to end -- although I did sort of make it through "Dogville" -- by sheer will power, with many cigarette breaks -- but mainly because of a fascination with Nicole Kidman's uncannily shapely nose. In short I thought "Dogville" was nothing but pretentious bullshit, and I couldn't believe that an actress like Lauren Bacalll lent her prestige to it, but -- I have to admit -- against my better judgement -- that I actually (sort of) liked "Manderlay". For one thing, Bacall, who was wooden in "Dogville", dies off in the first ten minutes, "Grace", who was Kidman in the first installment of this projected trilogy, has now metamorphosed into a less glamorous but far more credible actress, Bryce Dallas Howard, and a ponderous James Caan as Grace's gangster father, has been replaced by a more digestible (if slightly ridiculous) Willem Defoe, but what really makes "Manderlay" work as a drama (rather than a pretentious lecture on the sad state of the world by Lars von Trier) is the excellent cast of black actors, especially Danny Glover, but all uniformly good -- who somehow infuse this Von Trier head game with some real soul. Another thing which helps, is that Von Trier has mercifully gotten a little away from the overweaning Monopoly Board sets and invisible clicking doors which made "Dogville" unbearable after the first half hour. There is still, in "Manderlay", a certain amount of the artificial Monopoly Board geometry in place, but not so much that it totally distracts as it did in the earlier film. Who knows, maybe Part III will be set on a Ouija Board -- in any case, "Manderlay" has a certain feeling going for it that makes it far more watchable than any of Von Trier's previous sessions of celluloid sado-masochism. The title, incidentally, has nothing to do with Kipling's Mandalay, but is a co-opting of the name of the spooky mansion in Hitchcock's "Rebeccah". Here it is the name of a strange Alabama plantation where, in 1933, slavery is still going on and the slaves seem to like it that way -- for as head slave Danny Glover (great role) puts it, "We ain't reddy fo' no freedom yet -- we's better off dis way. Maybe he done got dat one right!

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arfdawg-1
2005/05/21

How poorly written!Talk about a heavy hand.This movie is nearly unwatchable.The main character simply proselytizes on and on and on and on until she practically starts foaming at the mouth and falls over backwards!I'm really unsure how anyone can sit through this borefest. It's simply dreadful. And how many times does this dumb chick have to say "we made them what they are?"HUh? We didn't hear you the 204th time?OMG burn the film Please burn the negative! Please!! Bury every copy.

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John Raymond Peterson
2005/05/22

I had some difficulty wrapping my head around a production that was in part stage work (a play instead of a movie), and in part documentary. The story which is meant to educate people about a terrible period in American History, when the treatment of slaves and pseudo slaves was still practiced for a long time. The movie also makes a valiant attempt at the morality issues of the times. The ensemble cast was superb. I however could not see the reasoning in making such a project (low inde budget), since the target audiences, or even audiences in general, were not going to be satisfied by this and tune out very early. I rather think it was indulgent to go ahead anyway; the commercial flop it turned out to be only tells me the producers should have tripled the budget and more the make this a fully fledged feature movie. There at least would have been a real audience for it; that audience would have received the message the producers and cast wanted to make. But hey, it's just my humble opinions.

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rooee
2005/05/23

Danish director Lars Von Trier continues his Deep South adventure with this fable about race, power, isolation and freedom.Like 2003's Dogville, there is something refreshingly literal about Von Trier's screenplay. That's not to say it lacks subtext - it is abundant - but at times its political convictions are presented like a series of political soundbites. While the blank theatre-style set is perhaps not used as effectively as it was in Dogville, the technique again adds weight to the bluntness of the key polemics.Von Trier's magic is in tackling weighty subject matter in a very watchable way. Dancer In The Dark, for example, probably his most powerful deconstruction of the American Dream, showed us a new twist on the classical Hollywood musical; and without patronising its heritage it made a pertinent political point. Like that masterpiece, Manderlay demands the audience leave their expectations at the door whilst offering a reasonably straightforward narrative containing some satisfying plot twists and a surprising amount of dark humour. It may be less genre-specific than Dancer In The Dark, but like all this ex-Dogme director's latter films, it is accessible, neat and tight, and fleet of foot.Von Trier presents yet another spiky woman-in-peril. Bryce Dallas Howard takes over from Nicole Kidman as the idealistic Grace. She turns out to be the ideal choice, too - there's a broadness to the shoulders and a steeliness to the eyes of this stronger, wiser heroine. Those who have Von Trier marked down as a misogynist will be pleased (or possibly disappointed) to hear that this troubled heroine is his most powerful and least set-upon to date. John Hurt, Chloe Sevigny, Jeremy Davies, Udo Kier, Lauren Bacall and Von Trier regular Jean-Marc Barr all return for another round of selfless bit parts.Those concerned with the idea of watching a movie without a set shouldn't worry - it's practically unnoticeable after a time, thanks largely to the quality and intensity of the drama. This is classy, intelligent film-making from a talented and consistent auteur.

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