Manderlay

Manderlay is a Danish film of Lars von Trier left in 2005.

Synopsis

Grace and its team of gangsters arrive in front of the plantation of Manderlay where the Esclavage was not abolished. Revolted, Grace decides to use the capacity of persuasion of the gangsters of its father to render comprehensible with all the horror of slavery.

History

Grace started from Dogville with his/her father and his team of gangsters. They cross the United States but are stopped in front of the plantation by a black woman who asks of the assistance because one of his/her companions will receive whiplashes. Grace realizes that in this plantation, the Esclavage was not abolished. Revolted, it prevents the whiplashes and announces to the owners that it will release the slaves. The old Mam owner dies under the eyes of Grace. This one succeeds in convincing his/her father to leave him some men. To render comprehensible with all how they should live, it decides to make reverse the roles. The Blacks will be from now on the owners and the White the slaves. But, old the escalves keeps their many old practices and is put at work with difficulty. It is necessary little of them so that the plantation of Coton is not done in time. After having destroyed the trees of the garden of Mam to be able to make repairs and new constructions, the plantation is devastated by a sandstorm. Future harvests are partly called into question and two thirds of the reserves of food are devastated. The famine makes rage then. Grace, during this time, starts to develop sexual Fantasme S towards the black and vigorous boys and, in particular, Timothy considered as a Proud Niger , a Munsi . Harvest comes finally, cotton is very white and very resistant. They draw a handsome price from them. The money is brought back to the plantation and Grace then decides to let the gangsters leave. It estimates that everyone included/understood. During dining it which follows, it yields to the charms of Timothy. But, in the morning, it realizes that a brawl burst, a Black was killed, the White are flee. She learns that the money was stolen. A swindler brings back 80% of this money which it gained against Timothy with the poker. It is thus him it robber. Moreover, she discovers that most of the former slaves knew that the Abolition had taken place, but had preferred to remain in their old state of fear of not being not accepted by the company. She even discovers that it is the grandfather of the slaves who wrote the laws which regulated the plantation. The Blacks then decide to return in their old state and force Grace to replace Mam. Grace pretends to accept to try to flee, but she whips all the same Timothy for her vol. She becomes thus like the Mam old woman whom she included/understood if little. Little misses her her father come to seek it and flees again through the the United States.

Film analyzes

; A criticism of slavery

The critical film Manderlay rather openly the Slavery with the the United States. Beyond that, he denounces racism and all that followed the abolition of slavery.

Criticism is visible with the beginning of film: Grace arrives in a village or slavery is not abolished, a white family exploits Blacks and their fact of undergoing humiliations (Timothy will be beaten). All the effort of Thanks to the court of film aims at restoring the equality. It is outraged lifestyle of the Blacks and law which it finds atrocious written in “The mam' law”. However, it is all the same the end of film and the credits which expose best the point of the sight of the realizer: images of exactions on American Blacks dating from the 20th century (thus posterior with the abolition of slavery) on bottom of a music of David Bowie. One finds here the irony suitable for Lars von Trier. It starts with the traditional images of the meetings of the Ku Klux Klan or hangings of the Fifties to finish by a close-up on the World Trade Center still upright followed image of American black soldiers to Iraq.

These credits lead us to question us on what really Lars von Trier denounces. Only the true anti-slavery character of film is Grace. However one cannot doubt the obvious irony of the narrator vis-a-vis heroin. She preaches on a side non-violence and is shocked blows which will receive Timoty or blows that a mother gives to her children, but on another side, she is with the head of a troop of gangsters. It is by the force which it imposes the new laws of Manderlay not only on the White but also on the Blacks (it is with weapons that they are led to the first meetings). Lastly, at the end of film, even if she flees the role of Mam, she takes it in spite of her by whipping Timothy in her fit of anger. The irony is however even more obvious at the any end of film when Grace flees. She passes then to sides of the hung body of the husband slave who fled the violence of his wife at the beginning of film. The narrator had then explained that the man went towards a “generous hand” tended by a white woman. The common points between this woman and Grace had been highlighted by the narrator: two white women wanting “to help” the blacks, surrounded by many men. One understands at the end of film that the man was killed by this woman or the men who accompanied it, undoubtedly for racist reasons. However is Grace so different from this woman? The parallelism of the beginning is reinforced at the end when the narrator explains the point of view of Grace. The latter wants some with the blacks to want to remain slaves and not to see the “helping hand” of the white…

Moreover, the slaves are not anti-slavery. One indeed learns at the end from film that it is the old slave himself which wrote “The Mam' S Law”. What seems in Grace a law humiliating and oppressive for him the ideal rule for Manderlay is. She is made for them, according to their character (they are classified by categories), a roof ensures them and protects them from misery and the famine. It removes to them one of the largest weights of the life, the choice. They are not responsible for their problems, all their misfortune comes from the law. Only some are, indeed, with the current that it is the old slave who with wrote. But it is in all full knowledge of the facts that the slaves vote, themselves, the return to the “Mam' S Law” at the end of film. Their explanation: white America is not ready to accommodate the freed blacks; the freedom which awaits them does not offer them same comfort as their slavery.

Who is thus criticized here? The slaves who don't fight for freedom? Or Grace and its naivety? A priori, it is the last assumption which appears righter. We already saw the irony of the narrator vis-a-vis the character of Grace. In front of its contradictions, the naivety of Grace is transformed into hypocrisy. She does not want to see that the “helping hand” does not exist. She says to want to remain modest, not to direct and to work with the others but she is convinced to be sauveuse black class. It is caught for kindness, refusing to admit its impulses masochists. Those are however obvious. They appear, for example, by its fascination for Munsi, classifies royal and proud, scorning the women, whose Timothy is supposed to form part. And one cannot, of course, forget Dogville, where Grace remained in a small village in spite of the maltreatment which it underwent. Is this the kindness or the masochism, which pushes it to leave his/her father, to accept the famine, to work like a slave? Doesn't she seek only one recognition of her own superiority of heart?

But which is Grace? Manderlay is well far from being realistic. Grace does not exist, it is a character of tale. Who is aimed through it? The answers here multiple, are mainly given by the credits of film. It is of course white America of before and especially according to the abolition of the slavery which is fustigated. But that goes further. The reference to the Guerre in Iraq is clear. Grace comes to impose by violence the Liberté, being caught for sauveuse world… The images of the World Trade Center and the war of the credits do nothing but confirm this suspicion. But when it is known that Lars von Trier forever put the foot in America, one can think that its criticism goes beyond. Perhaps even it aims the man in a general way and his arrogance…

Data sheet

Distribution

Around film

  • the film is the continuation of Dogville , turned with the same idea of a plate to the minimal Décor. It is the second episode of the trilogy the USA - Land off opportunity
  • Nicole Kidman should have continued to interpret the role of Grace, but officially for reasons of diary, it could not be released.
  • Manderley is the name of the manor in the film Rebecca of Alfred Hitchcock and in the homonymous novel Rebecca of Daphne of Maurier.
  • Manderlay takes as a starting point the revolt of slaves told in the foreword of Histoire of O (Jean Paulhan)

See too

  • Card IMDb
  • VonTrier' S Brechtian Gamble (Comment)

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