''Manderlay'' is a 2005

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by

Lars von Trier Lars von Trier (né Trier; born 30 April 1956) is a Danish film director and screenwriter. Beginning in the late-1960s as a child actor working on Danish television series ''Secret Summer'', von Trier's career has spanned more than five decad ...

, the second and most recent part of von Trier's projected '' USA – Land of Opportunities'' trilogy. Unlike von Trier's other trilogies, the films' stories are connected and it is a direct sequel to '' Dogville''. It stars

Bryce Dallas Howard Bryce Dallas Howard (born March 2, 1981) is an American actress and director. The eldest child of filmmaker Ron Howard, she studied acting at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. While portraying Characters in As You Like It#Rosali ...

, who replaces

Nicole Kidman Nicole Mary Kidman (born 20 June 1967) is an Australian and American actress and producer. Known for Nicole Kidman on screen and stage, her work in film and television productions across many genres, she has consistently ranked among the world ...

in the role of Grace Mulligan. The film co-stars Willem Dafoe, replacing

James Caan James Edmund Caan ( ; March 26, 1940 – July 6, 2022) was an American actor. He came to prominence playing Sonny Corleone in ''The Godfather'' (1972), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, Academy Award an ...

Lauren Bacall Betty Joan Perske (September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014), professionally known as Lauren Bacall ( ), was an American actress. She was named the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars, 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the America ...

Željko Ivanek Željko Ivanek (; ; born August 15, 1957) is a Slovenian-American actor of Croat descent. Ivanek's film credits include '' Courage Under Fire'' (1996), '' Donnie Brasco'' (1997), '' Hannibal'', '' Black Hawk Down'' (both 2001), '' Unfaithful'' ( ...

, Jeremy Davies, and

Chloë Sevigny Chloë Stevens Sevigny ( ; born November 18, 1974) is an American actress. Known for her work in independent films with controversial or experimental themes, her accolades include a Golden Globe Award, in addition to a nomination for an Acade ...

return portraying different characters from those in '' Dogville''. Only

John Hurt Sir John Vincent Hurt (22 January 1940 – 28 January 2017) was an English actor. Regarded as one of the finest actors of his time and known for the "most distinctive voice in Cinema of the United Kingdom, Britain", he was described by David Ly ...

, Udo Kier, and Jean-Marc Barr reprise their roles. The film was internationally co-produced with seven different European countries. The staging is very similar to ''Dogville'', which was shot on a sparsely dressed

sound stage A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a large, soundproof structure, building or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or te ...

akin to

black box theater A black box theater is a performance space, typically a square or rectangular room, with black walls and a black, flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interact ...

. As in the case of ''Dogville'', ''Manderlay''s action is confined to a small geographic area, in this case a

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

. The film is dedicated in memory of a French film producer, Humbert Balsan (1954-2005).

Plot

The film is told in eight straight chapters: # In which we happen upon Manderlay and meet the people there # "The freed enterprise of Manderlay" # "The Old Lady's Garden" # In which Grace means business # "Shoulder to Shoulder" # Hard times at Manderlay # "Harvest" # In which Grace settles with Manderlay and the film ends Set in 1933, the film takes up the story of Grace and her father after burning the town of Dogville at the end of the previous film. Grace and her father travel in convoy with a number of gunmen through rural

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

where they stop briefly outside a plantation called Manderlay. As the gangsters converse, a black woman emerges from Manderlay's front gates complaining that someone is about to be whipped for stealing a bottle of wine. Grace enters the plantation and learns that within it,

slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

persists, roughly 70 years after the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

and the

Emancipation Proclamation The Emancipation Proclamation, officially Proclamation 95, was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. The Proclamation had the eff ...

. Grace is appalled and insists on staying at the plantation with a small contingent of gunmen and her father's lawyer, Joseph, in order to guarantee the slaves' safe transition to freedom. Shortly after Grace's father and the remaining gangsters depart, Mam, the master of the house, dies, but not before asking Grace to burn a notebook containing "Mam's Law," an exhaustive code of conduct for the entire plantation and all its inhabitants, free and slave. She reads the descriptions of each variety of slave that can be encountered, which include: * Group 1: Proudy

Nigger In the English language, ''nigger'' is a racial slur directed at black people. Starting in the 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been increasingly replaced by the euphemistic contraction , notably in cases where ''nigger'' is Use–menti ...

* Group 2: Talkin' Nigger * Group 3: Weepin' Nigger * Group 4: Hittin' Nigger * Group 5: Clownin' Nigger * Group 6: Losin' Nigger * Group 7: Pleasin' Nigger (also known as a

chameleon Chameleons or chamaeleons (Family (biology), family Chamaeleonidae) are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of Old World lizards with 200 species described as of June 2015. The members of this Family (biology), family are best known for ...

, a person of the kind who can transform himself into exactly the type the beholder would like to see) The principal seven divisions are each populated by a single adult slave at Manderlay, who congregate daily and converse on a "parade ground," with Roman numerals of the numbers 1 through 7 designating where each slave stands. "Mam's Law" contains further provisions against the use of cash by slaves, or the felling of trees on the property for timber. All of this information disgusts Grace and inspires her to take charge of the plantation in order to punish the slave owners and prepare the slaves for life as free individuals. In order to guarantee that the former slaves will not continue to be exploited, no longer as slaves but instead as sharecroppers, Grace orders Joseph to draw up contracts for all Manderlay's inhabitants, institutionalizing a form of cooperative living in which the white family works as slaves and the blacks collectively own the plantation and its crops. Throughout this process, Grace lectures all those present about the notions of

freedom Freedom is the power or right to speak, act, and change as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving oneself one's own laws". In one definition, something is "free" i ...

and democracy, using rhetoric entirely in keeping with the ideology of racial equality which most contemporary Americans had yet to embrace. However, as the film progresses, Grace fails to embed these principles in Manderlay's community in a form she considers satisfactory. Furthermore, her suggestions for improving the conditions of the community backfire on several occasions, such as using the surrounding trees for timber, which leaves the crops vulnerable to dust storms. After a year of such tribulations, the community harvests its cotton and successfully sells it, marking the high point of Grace's involvement. Subsequently, she un-enthusiastically has sex with one of the ex-slaves who also steals and gambles away all of the cotton profits. Finally admitting her failure, Grace contacts her father and attempts to leave the plantation only to be stopped by the plantation's blacks. At this point it is revealed that "Mam's Law" was not conceived and enforced by Mam or any of the other whites, but instead by Wilhelm, the community's eldest member, as a means of maintaining the status quo after the abolition of slavery, protecting the blacks from a hostile outside world. The people of Manderlay then tell Grace to punish Timothy for what he did by whipping him. Grace then finds a letter from her father, explaining that he came to get her while she was whipping Timothy. He assumed that this was what she meant by claiming that Manderlay had come upon new times and that she had accepted them as slaves. Grace then runs away to another unrevealed place. As in many von Trier films, the idealistic main character becomes frustrated by the reality he or she encounters.

Cast

Production

and

, who had appeared in earlier chapter of the trilogy, did not return for this film; Kidman was unable to return due to scheduling conflicts, while Caan disapproved of the film's depiction of anti-American culture and

. Fearful about her sex scene,

said she approached it in a hypnotic state. After the first take, she excused herself and went to the bathroom to collect her thoughts, then started to think of it as a sort of comedic scene. "Just in my head. And interestingly enough, Lars kind of felt that. The scene wasn't written funny at all, but there are some really eccentric and absurd moments in that scene that people tend to chuckle at."

Donkey killing

During production, a

donkey The donkey or ass is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a separate species, ''Equus asinus''. It was domes ...

was slaughtered for dramatic purposes resulting in John C. Reilly, the actor originally cast as Dr. Hector, quitting in protest. The scene was cut from the film before it was released.

Reception

Critical reception

''Manderlay'' received mixed reviews from critics. , the film holds a 50% approval rating on review aggregation site

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on 103 reviews with an average rating of 5.70/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "''Manderlay'' may work better as a political statement than as a film, making its points at the expense of telling a compelling story." On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Anthony Lane of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' said, "Von Trier is not so much a filmmaker as a misanthropic mesmerist, who uses movies to bend the viewer to his humorless will," while Josh Kun of the ''Los Angeles Times'' added, "Trier gets lost in his own rhetoric." Conversely, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' film critic Peter Bradshaw and

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

both gave the film mildly positive reviews. While noting, "Many moviegoers are likely to like the film less than the discussion it drags them into," Ebert opined, "The crucial difference between ''Manderlay'' and the almost unbearable ''Dogville'' is not that on Trier'spolitics have changed, but that his sense of mercy for the audience has been awakened." Peter Bradshaw claimed that ''Manderlay'' "is a wind-up, but an effective wind-up," and wrote of von Trier's Land of Opportunities trilogy, "My guess is you can throw away the first and third movies and keep this one."

Box office

The film took a total of $674,918 from 12 countries.

Accolades

''Manderlay'' was entered into the

2005 Cannes Film Festival The 58th Cannes Film Festival took place from 11 May and ran until 22 May 2005. Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica served as jury president for the main competition. Cécile de France hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. Belgian filmmakers D ...

Soundtrack

The ''Manderlay'' soundtrack, including songs from the film ''Dogville'', was arranged by composer Joachim Holbek, and released through Milan Records. # "Dogville Overture" – (

Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist, impresario of Baroque music and Roman Catholic priest. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lif ...

Concert in G Major) # "Thoughts of Tom" – (

Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel ( ; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well-known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concerti. Born in Halle, Germany, H ...

Concerto Grosso in D Major) # "Happy at Work" – (Oboe Concerto Albinoni Concerto For Oboe in D Minor) # "Dogville Theme" – (Vivaldi Concert in G Major) # "The Gifts" – (Flute And Cembalo Vivaldi Concerto For Flute in D Minor) # "Happy Times in Dogville" – ( Albinoni Concerto For Oboe in D Minor) # "Fast Motion" – (Vivaldi Concert in G Major) # "The Fog" – (Vivaldi "Madrigalesco" RV 139) # "Grace Gets Angry" – (Vivaldi "Nisi Dominus" RV 608) # "Change of Time" – ( Pergolesi "Stabat Mater") # "Manderlay Theme" – (Vivaldi Concerto For Basson in a Minor) # "Mam's Death" – (Vivaldi Concert in G Minor) # "The Child" – (Vivaldi "Al Santo Sepolcro" and Pergolesi "Quando Corpus Morietur") # "The Swallows Arrive" – (Handel Aria) # "Young Americans" –

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer, songwriter and actor. Regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Bowie was acclaimed by critics and musicians, pa ...

References

External links