Manderlay
is an old plantation in Alabama with a vitriolic and iron-fisted woman at the
helm and a slew of cornbread talkin' colored folk. Manderlay also exists in a
vacuum - taking place in the American south some 70 years after the emancipation
proclamation was issued. These are the liberties that Lars Van Triers (Breaking
the Waves, Dancer in the Dark) often takes in order to set the stage for his scathing
indictments of American government and society. Manderlay is a sequel to his 2003's
low budget Dogville, and if you can imagine it, Manderlay is an even a lower-budget
affair. As was the case with Dogville, the set is like a giant chalkboard, (that
slightly resembles a slate-colored Monopoly board from high above) There are a
few cardboard cut-outs for the occasional tree or gaslight, but any grand plantation
manse one must conjure from imagination. Both Dogville and Manderlay are experiments
- individual dwellings have some furnishing but no walls and, of course, ceilings
- an effect, no doubt to insure that visuals do not in any way compete with the
polemics, both metaphorical and allegorical that Von Triers attempts to get across.
The characters go about their domestic lives as though they were doing so in privacy,
but everything that goes on is visible to all. Perhaps a dig at the loss of privacy
and personal liberty brought about Bush and his controversial Patriot Act?
In
Manderlay, Grace, the main character from Dogville is not played by Nicole Kidman,
but rather Bryce Dallas Howard, who will be mystifying audiences this summer in
The Lady In The Water. She arrives at Manderlay with her gangster father who this
time is portrayed by Willem Dafoe. Her dad needs to leave so he can catch up on
his life of crime, but not before he sets her up with some gangster guardians.
With some mob style magic Grace (full of the spitfire hubris and grand intentions
carried over from the ending of Dogville) sets about turning slavery on it’s
ear, and proceeds to turn things in Manderlay completely upside down. Heedless
of the desperate pleas by the plantations’ chief house Negro, (portrayed
with dignity by Danny Glover) as well as the dying lady of the house, (played
by Lauren Bacall) who warns Grace of the dangers of tampering with such long-standing
and time-honored traditions. Undeterred and somewhat recklessly, Grace redoubles
her campaign and the status quo is thrown out the window along with the baby and
the bathwater. Soon the slaves have been liberated, (or so Grace says) to work
as they please, spend their money and engage in all manner of vices. We even find
the plantations white characters serving the Negroes in blackface. (see Abu Grabe)
True
to Von Triers’ form, it doesn’t take long for this newfound anarchy
to spin wildly out of control. Manderlay becomes less productive, the Negroes
are bankrupted by white carpetbaggers and Grace is violently raped by one of the
field Negroes she most desperately wanted to help. Things never go so well for
Grace in these experimental Von Triers films. The film concludes in much the same
fashion as Dogville with our main character exacting vengeance of her own, followed
by a restoration of sorts of the old guard and it’s status quo. Manderlay
is directed with a bit of a lighter touch, thus the film isn’t quite as over-the-top
as it’s predecessor. Happily, I can report that the sequel isn’t as
long either.
Sorting
through all the anti-American themes is a bit of a daunting task, they’re
just too numerous to list, but we can tackle the biggies.. First and foremost
is the obvious theme of indicting America’s post Civil War reconstruction.
Kind of an easy target and one that has already been covered ad nauseum. If you’re
going to shake your holy sarcastic finger at the (Northern) progressive American
whites who thought they had the full grasp upon how the injustices of the south
should be remedied, screw Von Triers this has already been done much more succinctly
and with much more daring, humor and intelligence. In 1974 Randy Newman took the
piss out of the northern sophisticates once and for all in his masterpiece “Good
Old Boys.” Anything beyond that is redundant.
Running
a close second is Von Triers broad swipe at America’s policy of promoting
democracy around the globe. In all fairness Manderlay is inspired satire in this
regard. Let’s see . . . where has America recently marched in with guns,
ran off the old-guard and forced democracy down people’s throat whether they
wanted it or not? Hmmm. Regardless what you think about Van Triers as a film maker
or a political muck-raker, you have to admit that Manderlay presents an impressive
statement about Iraq. Though, we don’t always like what we see, it’s
important that individuals such as Von Triers occasionally hold up a mirror for
us to see ourselves as outsiders do.
Using
the naive do-gooder Grace, to represent George Bush’s handling of post Shock
and Awe Iraq is actually even more impressive. Just as Grace proves ill-equipped
to sort out the many negative consequences that her sudden liberation engenders,
Von Triers is obviously having a field day at the expense of the Bush administrations
post liberation planning. If only the democrats could take this movie and somehow
(perhaps with the use of big subtitles) make it easy for the layman to understand
- “You see the fact that Grace is now being raped by the guy who she helped,
a man whom she thought was her friend, actually represents the conditions in Iraq.
You see figuratively America is being raped by the very people who President Bush
‘supposedly helped,’ which makes us look like fools, regardless what
Bush’s real intentions were to begin with. To sum up - Rape bad, Bush bad,
Democracy good when it’s in the hands of the political party named after
it. That’s right, very good Mr. Wilson, the Democrats.” I say this knowing
full well that there are parts of the film that will be interpreted as criticism
of the way liberals have handled the subject of racism. The most important thing
about this film is that it will stimulate a good deal of debate, that is if people
can bring themsleves to sit all the way through it.
Getting
back to film criticism, it’s really too bad Von Triers chooses to paint this
picture with such broad strokes. And then beat us over the head with the brush.
It’s almost like Von Triers builds these sets as traps to catch America all
unawares, then ends up falling into them himself. Next time he should just save
the 5 grand he spends on these silly sets and just build one really tall pulpit.
Then dispense with the actors and just turn the camera on himself climb dramatically
step by labored step to the top of his bully pulpit and just spend 90 minutes
lecturing. Because for all his brilliant allegorical narrative - Dogville and
Manderlay are nothing more than lectures. The amazing roster of gifted actors
are ultimately puppets through which he lectures. America is bad, America exploits,
America usurps, America crushes the little guy so that the rich guy can have a
better view, and so it goes.
Without
question Von Triers is a gifted man and the world is a better place because he
has the opportunity to make his films. But as a fan of his first two films (both
of which dealt quite poignantly with the subjugation and exploitation of women.
A theme that escalated into the absurd in Dogville with America being the metaphorical
exploiter and of course ended with a revenge scene that people do not forget.
In fact I often discuss Dogville with people who loved the movie for no other
reason than the last five minutes. With Manderlay, Von Triers has expanded his
scope, yet has failed to make an effective film due to his heavy-handed obsessions
and the obvious and overriding problem - using the medium of film to convey a
message or (messages) is fine, but unless the message comes in the form of a story
it quite literally shoots itself in the foot. If Von Triers wants us to believe
that what he has to say is true, he needs to present it to an audience in the
form of a believable story, Conveyed by actors who carry the narrative via real
situations, that “show” instead of tell us why we care about these ideas
- because they are happening to real characters who we’ve come to know and
whether we like them or not they make us believe. Look at Syrianna, look at Good
Night and Good Luck, even Brokeback Mountain gets it’s point across, by allowing
us to get caught up in a story. Then everything else falls into place. Rather
than falling to pieces as was the case in Dogville and Manderlay - where these
gargantual messages ring hollow due to such sketchy underpinning. The real tragedy
here is the indefensible waste of brilliant casts. There is so precious little
for these actors to do in both Dogville and Manderlay, that he might as well have
chosen his cast from people walking down the street. A movie with a story, with
conflict and humor and drama requires actors and he had some of the very finest
at his disposal. And sure enough he disposed of them. Lectures and diatribes that
have characterized both of these films could have just as easily been carried
out by a dozen more cardboard cut-outs.
As
a post script, this Danish director has never been to America, citing a fear of
flying, and has shot his last few films in Sweden, where the government has provided
a helpful environment for making films. It was also reported actor John C. Really
was originally going to be in the film but left in some disagreement with Von
Triers, possibly involving a deleted scene where an animal was actually slaughtered
during production. Knowing Von Triers it was probably a Bald Eagle. This is the
second in a planned trilogy by Von Triers, which will be concluded by Washington,
set in Washington DC in the 1940's. I should think that if Von Triers plans to
continue his ham-fisted bludgeoning of this country, it’s foreign policy,
it’s race relations, it’s time he paid America a visit.
