Manderlay

Continuing where his first film in the U.S.A. triology left off, Dogville, Lars von Trier’s Manderlay (2005) charts a more compact, more scathing, and of course, more emotionally challenging path.

Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) and her father’s band of gangsters stumble upon a southern country town that still employs slavery. Grace orders that the town release their hold on the slaves, that it begin teaching democracy and freedom, and that the whites must repay their debt. Of course, since this is von Trier we’re talking about, any ideals that Grace exhibits are eventually called into question, so that the film examines whether forced democracy still isn’t a form of monarchy, despite how compliant the African-Americans initially seem. As always, questions of community and the true self are explored and commented upon.

Grace is initially positioned as a character who is not vain, but by the end of the film she has surrendered to her pride and reveals herself to be as guilty of ulterior motives as any other. Implicit in this newfound realization comes the social critique from Manderlay that anyone who forcefully legitimizes a takeover/regime change must still be examined for their ulterior motives. And while the scope of this little summary isn’t to bring national politics into the fray, von Trier is a little too blunt to not intentionally satarize these details. And while it may be too easy a target, it is also a potentially valid one.

Still, the ending of the film, which forces a reversal of assumption about character intention on the part of Wilhelm (Danny Glover, demonstrating solid range and restraint), does attempt to escape such pedantics and legitimately question the nature/need for some level of slavery, even as at adheres to the idea of female martyrdom so expected in a Lars von Trier film.

The problem with judging this film, then, comes primarily in questioning how many successive times von Trier can exploit the same, albeit fertile, ideas of martyrdom before one tires of the repetitive thematics and wishes for von Trier to try something new. This is why Breaking the Waves is the lone masterpiece of von Trier’s films viewed by this author. It was the first to use these tricks, and so it claimed them as vital and innovative. Now, however, despite retaining a quality picture, there are reservations in awarding a film that recycles so many ideas.

A dissenting opinion of Manderlay can be found here, and its criticisms are all indeed valid. But if the film works emotionally, and this author believes it does, then von Trier’s belief in this work, despite being didactic, is nonetheless engaging and worth viewing for anyone at all interested in the exploration of challenging ideas.

Manderlay: 7.5/10