Manderlay (2005)
Dir: Lars von Trier
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342735/
I need to see more von Trier.
Prior to this, I'd only seen Dogville and The Five Obstructions (which wasn't so much his film as it was his idea), and I loved Dogville. This is the second of his films which I have seen and loved. Granted, they both part of the same trilogy, but they are different enough in theme.
Something about the visual style just works for me. The minimalist studio set combined with handheld digital video somehow lends a bit of both authenticity and falsehood at the same time to the film. I also love the way the stories were told in both this and Dogville. The fairy-tale style narrator, the film broken up into chapters. The thing just feels like a breath of fresh air, even if some may say it is a bit pretentious. Even if the content wasn't as great as it was, I would probably still enjoy the movies for the visual style and storytelling methods alone.
This film, like Dogville, is angry. Some say they are anti-American, and maybe they are. But I think at the core they are simply anti-Human. They contain an idealistic lead that just wants to do the right thing and help others, but is constantly thwarted by the actions of her peers and things she may not have known about. This paints a bleak picture of our world and the people in it, and seems to suggest that we can never live in harmony together. Perhaps we cannot. Perhaps it is simply human nature that keeps us seperated. This movie does containt a pretty hefty indictment of our nation's history of racism and racial tension, and it's pretty relevant, because we still treat minorities like second class citizens in our nation. The end credits, with David Bowie's Young Americans playing over photographs of suffering blacks and hate crimes/demonstrations is pretty heartbreaking.
Though not quite as good as Nicole Kidman in the film before it, Bryce Dallas Howard does a very good job portraying Grace, and knowing the typical by-the-numbers Oscar-bait sapfests that her father Ron makes, I was very suprised to see her here at all, let alone doing some pretty courageous things such as a full-frontal sex scene. She seemed a bit out of place at the beginning, but she certainly won me over by the end. The whole supporting cast was great as well.
If loving these movies makes me seem like a cynical, pretentious, america-hating dickhead, so be it. I love Dogville and Manderlay.
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342735/
I need to see more von Trier.
Prior to this, I'd only seen Dogville and The Five Obstructions (which wasn't so much his film as it was his idea), and I loved Dogville. This is the second of his films which I have seen and loved. Granted, they both part of the same trilogy, but they are different enough in theme.
Something about the visual style just works for me. The minimalist studio set combined with handheld digital video somehow lends a bit of both authenticity and falsehood at the same time to the film. I also love the way the stories were told in both this and Dogville. The fairy-tale style narrator, the film broken up into chapters. The thing just feels like a breath of fresh air, even if some may say it is a bit pretentious. Even if the content wasn't as great as it was, I would probably still enjoy the movies for the visual style and storytelling methods alone.
This film, like Dogville, is angry. Some say they are anti-American, and maybe they are. But I think at the core they are simply anti-Human. They contain an idealistic lead that just wants to do the right thing and help others, but is constantly thwarted by the actions of her peers and things she may not have known about. This paints a bleak picture of our world and the people in it, and seems to suggest that we can never live in harmony together. Perhaps we cannot. Perhaps it is simply human nature that keeps us seperated. This movie does containt a pretty hefty indictment of our nation's history of racism and racial tension, and it's pretty relevant, because we still treat minorities like second class citizens in our nation. The end credits, with David Bowie's Young Americans playing over photographs of suffering blacks and hate crimes/demonstrations is pretty heartbreaking.
Though not quite as good as Nicole Kidman in the film before it, Bryce Dallas Howard does a very good job portraying Grace, and knowing the typical by-the-numbers Oscar-bait sapfests that her father Ron makes, I was very suprised to see her here at all, let alone doing some pretty courageous things such as a full-frontal sex scene. She seemed a bit out of place at the beginning, but she certainly won me over by the end. The whole supporting cast was great as well.
If loving these movies makes me seem like a cynical, pretentious, america-hating dickhead, so be it. I love Dogville and Manderlay.
posted by will at
6:26 PM
