Grace, Lars von Trier’s lead character from Dogville, stumbles onto the Manderlay
plantation. Here, in 1933, slavery still
exists. Grace is shocked. With the help of her father’s gangsters, she frees
the slaves. The Madame of the estate,
played by the great Lauren Bacall, dies, and Wilhelm, the eldest slave, does
not know what the slaves will do with their new freedom. Grace decides to stay on at Manderlay and
teach the former slaves self-worth and atone for the sins of white Americans.
Von Trier’s premises are always fascinating, if not a bit
extreme and slanted.
At first von Trier seems kind of silly or at least simple
minded. Grace is a do-gooder liberal
socialite, the slaves dimwitted and ready to follow orders. The film, or at least Grace and the proudest
of the freed slaves, Timothy, hammers home the fact that America had slavery, and that white Americans are to be held
responsible. While this is undeniably
true, it seems that von Trier forgot that slavery originated in Europe. It was the Europeans who took men and women
from Africa and enslaved them. And before
that the Egyptians enslaved the Jews. Slavery
is not an American invention.
So at the start of the film I felt it lacked weight. It seemed untidy and outrageously simple, perhaps
because after Nicole Kidman’s brilliant performance as Grace in Dogville, it was difficult to adjust to
Bryce Dallas Howard’s interpretation of the character. But as Grace settles into her role as god of
Manderlay and we get to discover the personalities of the former slaves, the
film starts to pick up.
Grace, believing some order needs to motivate the bewildered
slaves, introduces them to the idea of democracy, the system of America that,
as Americans, they should already be well aware of. She creates a system of voting where each
person on the plantation can cast one vote.
That sounds like America, and for me the film became less about slavery
and more a microcosm of American life using this extreme premise to prove its
points. The slaves collectively vote on
who owns the rake, literally on what time of day it is, and when it is
appropriate for people to laugh, late at night being most inconsiderate of
others who sleep. The film became
interesting when it was asking serious questions: is democracy feasible? I don’t think so. America may be the longest surviving democracy,
as a nation we’ve managed it better than other entities before us, but we are
not a democracy. We are a republic,
where the majority of the vote passes.
People—some people—do not have individual freedoms. Well, yes we do, but in our country certain
people have less rights or different rights than the majority. In a democracy this would not be an issue,
but because individual rights are voted on by the majority these rights are
subject.
This is not a political rant, but von Trier, an outsider,
someone who has confessed his mistrust of the American government and
American’s perceived (sometimes undeniable) prejudice against minorities is
asking serious questions we in this country don’t often ask. We prefer to see isolated cases or the big
picture, saying that slowly things are getting better and we turn a blind eye
to the difficult realities of those who have to fight for their freedom. America is not at war with itself; there
should be no causalities. No one should
not suffer in a democracy.
Von Trier should know better, though, that every nation has
similar problems. Perhaps it is America’s
ideals that set us apart. If we aspire
to be better, no forgiveness is allotted to our failures, failures we have in
abundance as the director points out in a horrifying and oddly beautiful photographic
montage of American racism using actual photos.
A film might have the right side of an argument, or argue
its misguided case well, but propaganda means nothing if the material is not
engaging. So how effective is Manderlay as a film?
One thing that puzzled me is Grace, her motivations and her
ultimate failure (failure in ways that are unpredictable so I hope this
sentence wasn’t too much of a spoiler).
As a liberal, I can’t help but be offended when generally liberal ideas
are scrutinized, but I have to say in the context of the film the scrutiny is
accurate. Grace is simplistically
idealistic and really doesn’t know how the world functions. She puts too much faith in the concept of
freedom and never asks if she should. I
won’t say anymore regarding the ending but I will ask the question: are black
people offended by it? If I were black I
think it would raise my eyebrow. Regardless,
I found it fascinating, offensive, but still fascinating.
Manderlay is not
100% successful, but von Trier’s films are always rough around the edges. The film succeeds in its own convictions. The acting is exceptional, the casting,
too. Danny Glover has his best role in
recent years. I forgot just how powerful
and commanding an actor he is. He is
very impressive, and seeing him together with Lauren Bacall was strange and
wonderful. Bacall is a legend,
obviously, and such a claim does a disservice to just how powerful she is, but
here her role is very small. She
appeared in Dogville as a different
character but in both of her films with Lars von Trier she has not been given
anything significant to do. But her
cache is enough.
Bryce Dallas Howard is not Nicole Kidman. Kidman gave her best performance as Grace in Dogville; she was natural and frail and
eager. Howard’s performance feels like a
period piece. She seems out of it. She’s trying too hard. Her delivery is stagy and unconvincing, but
as the film went on I accepted her. She
does, like all of von Trier’s leading ladies, some very brave things on
screen. Unlike, Björk or Kidman however,
Howard’s raw presence isn’t too impressive.
She’s not bad but not on the level of a Lars von Trier film. And I’d hate to blame an actor for the unevenness
of a film but when the material is this outrageous, the right performance can
cement the outrageous in a grounded world.
It doesn’t so much happen in Manderlay.
Manderlay (2005)
Writer / Director: Lars von Trier
Stars: Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach De Bankole, Danny Glover, Lauren Bacall
Denmark
In English
139 minutes
IMDb link:
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