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Aug 28, 2008 2:09 PM CST |
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Whatever you think of Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier as a filmmaker, one thing that he knows how to do brilliantly and always is to court controversy. His productions often border on the scandalous, and Dogville, his most recent film until now, was widely discussed and argued about, both for the novelty of its production and its theme of American small town vengeance. Manderlay, which is having its world premiere here at the Cannes Film Festival, is the second part of Lars von Trier’s projected “American” trilogy—though he has now said he might take a break before tackling the third part by going back to a smaller, Dogma-style film in order to “cleanse” himself. The theme of Manderlay is American treatment of slaves. Like Dogville, the set here is a bare stage with painted areas for buildings or locations, with a few scattered props to help us along. The film is divided into seven distinct “chapters” or sequences. Manderlay is a plantation in Alabama where the characters from Dogville arrive. The cast includes Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach de Bankole, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, Lauren Bacall, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier, and John Hurt among others. The year is 1933. Arriving in Alabama with her father, Grace decides to intervene in the life of the plantation where slavery exists as if it had never been abolished at the end of the Civil War. She believes that she has to make up for the injustices which the slaves suffered for generations. “We brought them here, we abused them, and made them what they are,” she argues with her father. She decides that she will stay at Manderlay and see them through their first cotton harvest. The task of winning the former slaves’ trust and making the plantation function at the same time is arduous. There is a dust storm which almost wipes out the newly-planted cotton crop; the former slaves are not picking up their share of the work; a young daughter dies after an old woman steals her food, and it is up to Grace to mete out the punishment. Wilhelm, one of the former slaves, sums up Grace’s idealism with, “America was not ready to welcome us Negroes as equals seventy years ago and it still ain’t, and the way things are goin’ it won’t be in a hundred years from now. I fear the humiliations this country has up its sleeves for us free colored folks will surpass everybody’s imagination.” At the end, the former slaves vote to reimpose the old slave laws at Manderlay. Manderlay ends with a long montage of photos covering African-American history ranging from lynchings to the civil rights era. Von Trier, who has never set foot in America, said that he was inspired by The Threepenny Opera when he wrote the script for Manderlay. The film often includes dialogue or narration which is easy to interpret as patronizing and polemical. The film is intentionally anti-realistic and is kind of a moralistic fairy tale for adults. The issues it lays out are oversimplified and sometimes bear only faint connections to reality. But ultimately you forget these things because with all of his arrogance and lack of subtlety, Lars von Trier is trying for something more universal. In an interview in the press book for Manderlay, he says that he wanted to explore the theme of how democracy starts. “Democracy,” he says, “has to start somewhere. That’s why it is incredibly difficult to impose democracy by force. Every other system of government is easier to impose by force.” Manderlay will infuriate some, but it is not an easy film to dismiss. In making it, von Trier once again managed to push the envelope. This is Milos Stehlik for Chicago Public Radio’s Worldview from the Cannes Festival in Cannes, France. Worldview film contributor Milos Stehlik is the director of Facets Multimedia. |
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