Hello Mike

Long time since I have visited here, mainly because London Film
Festival apart I haven't caught many movies over the last year.
Anyway your correspondant Scottish Catriona said on Dec 7th that
Paris catches films earlier than over here. WRONG I saw Manderlay at
the LFF back in October. Anyway here's my review cut and pasted from
Spank the Monkey.

Following directly on from Dogville this is the second of Lars Von
Trier's American trilogy, with the final film Washington slated for
release somewhere in 2007. Thus a convoy of Grace, her father, and
assorted gangsters, having shot up Dogville, are now travelling
South through Alabama.

Probably worth noting the personnel changes now, with the part of
Grace (formerly played by Ms Kidman) now taken by Bryce Dallas
Howard (the blind girl in M. Night Shyamalan's The Village), and her
father being played by Willem Dafoe (as opposed to James Caan). Like
Dogville the whole movie is played out on an open plan theatrical
type set, is narrated by John Hurt, and is concluded with Bowie's
Young Americans.

Somewhat by accident the convoy stumble across a share cropping
plantation, whereby a young black woman begs Grace for help to
prevent a whipping being administered to one of the black plantation
workers. Having put a stop to that, Grace is incredulous to discover
that the workers are still treated as slaves, some seventy years
after slavery was abolished. The root of this being the matriarchal
plantation owner, Lauren Bacall, and her family of heavily armed
overseers. However the shock of Grace's and the gangsters' arrival
leaves the Matriarch in such awe, that she keels over and dies. Thus
Grace makes it her divine mission to give these slaves the same
freedoms that the rest of America enjoys. Thus with the aid of
daddy's gangsters the overseers are disarmed (although in the event
only a couple of old rifles are found), and now the former
plantation slaves are given a legal stake in the future of the
plantation. Grace's father soon moves off, but leaves Grace a
handful of gangsters to ensure the success and security of the
project, as well as his best contract lawyer.

Suffice to say it's all a recipe for chaos, theft, murder and
anarchy, with the community proving that they are not yet ready to
survive in the open world. Yet even though it is painfully obvious
that she has failed, Grace finds the community are not prepared to
let her go, and will use force against her in order to keep her
around and in charge of them. Well I am sure you will have twigged
by now that this film is not about racism or slavery at all, but is
of course an allegory for America's involvement in Iraq, and the
unholy mess both countries now find themselves in.

Moving back to Bryce Dallas Howard, I actually think she does a
better job in this role than Kidman did in Dogville. Something never
quite stacked up previously with Kidman's passive put upon nature
suddenly turning rottweiler at that movie's conclusion. In this,
however, Bryce Dallas Howard comes across as far more believable as
the well intentioned gangster's daughter, who isn't averse to using
daddy's methods and men when the occasion demands.
Anyway, I have long held the opinion that Lars Von Trier is the best
director in cinema today; nothing here forces me to revise that
opinion.