Cannes: Day Eight

Get the Time Out opinion of one of the most controversial films of the festival so far.

May 18 2005

There are few certainties in life, but the controversy surrounding a new Lars von Trier film is definitely one.

'Manderlay' is the Danish director's follow-up to 'Dogville' and the second in a trilogy of 'American' films. I say 'American' because 'Manderlay', like 'Dogville' before it, is about as American as foie gras.

It's certainly an American story about a young woman, Grace, who stumbles across a slave colony in 1930s America.

On the death of its mistress (Lauren Bacall), Grace assumes a leadership that she uses to impose her own brand of emancipation on the slaves.

The parallels with the recent American mission in Iraq are clear, especially when Grace's ideas of freedom prove to be highly questionable in terms of morality and taste.

Von Trier plays with the idea of emancipation to provoke a debate on America's current ideas of 'democracy'.

But it's a stilted and often tedious affair as John Hurt's voiceover leads us through eight Brechtian chapters.

The approach is identical to 'Dogville': everything is filmed on a largely bare sound stage with chalk markings denoting buildings and incorporating minimal sets. The lighting is simple. A large, ever-present cast acts as a chorus to the main action. The photography is intimate and hand-held.

However, the excitement of von Trier's experimental approach is lost with this second film, leaving just a troubled and troubling story.

It's hard to knock von Trier; his method is intellectually sound and pleasingly original - but his message is lost in unappealing dialogue and frankly dull exposition.

He overloads the film with so many conflicting ideas and internal debates that his argument is hard to follow or even understand.

The credits roll again to David Bowie's 'Young Americans' and this time reveal a montage of images relating to the black experience.

But it doesn't feel like we've just watched a summation of that experience, only a clumsy – if challenging – dance on its margins.

At the press conference for the film, von Trier answered the inevitable question about a Dane who has never visited America tackling the country head-on.

'America is a good subject because such a big, big part of our lives has to do with America,' he said.

'America is kind of sitting on the world, there's no question about it. And therefore I'm making films that have to do with America, because America fills about 60% of my brain. All the words in there, all the things I've experienced in my life, about 60% of them – and I'm not very happy about that – is American.

'So in fact I am American, but I can't go there to vote, I can't change anything because I'm from a small country. And that is why I make films about America. I don't think it's so strange.'

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