Manderlay on DVD (2005)

A Challenging Film

A customer from London, England , 05/03/2006

This film is guaranteed to produce polarized reactions from viewers.

Set shortly after the events of Dogville, Manderlay deposits Grace and a group of gangsters at an Alabama cotton plantation where slavery is still in force seventy years after the Civil War. Naturally, she emancipates the slaves and then forces the plantation's owners to work side by side with them.

This being Lars von Trier, what results is no fairy tale. The issues that are explored are very contentious and this is far from an easy watch. However, even if you hate everything that von Trier has to say, the film will at least make you ask questions and you will be thinking about it long after it's finished. Don't leave before the end credits have run either, as they are very much part of the film.

This sure ain't Wedding Crashers, but cinema thrives on diversity and I feel that it is well worth watching and discussing.

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promise me i'll never be trapped in a lift with 'von' trier

lloyd , 17/10/2007

i'd love to say this was a noble attempt at dealing with serious societal issues, but instead it's just an annoyingly smug 'moral tale' from arch simplifier and stone-thrower, lars 'von' trier. does 'mandalay' raise serious issues? yes. does it deal with them well or do them (or the audience) justice? not for my money. theatrically and stylistically, if you've seen 'dogville' you really don't need to see this; morally, if you need 2-and-1/4-hour sermons on the bleedin' obvious to fuel meaningless, momentary white-european indignation, then this'll be right up your alley. self-righteous nonsense. worse, simply tedious. in any way entertaining or thought-provoking? um, no. trying to be too damn clever-clever for it's own good? absolutely.

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Lars pushing his luck.........

hammer99 from Chelmsford [Highly rated reviewer] , 10/03/2006

I thought that 'Dogville' was fantastic and 'Breaking the Waves' and 'Dancer in the Dark' are two of the best I've ever seen (thereby establishing my Von Trier credentials). This one, however, just didn't do it for me. The stage format worked magnificently with 'Dogville' mainly due to its novelty and the extraordinary performances of it's 'A' list stars: Kidman, Gazzara, Bacall, Caan and Anderson. However, Bacall doesn't last long in this sequel and Bryce Howard just doesn't have the star quality or subtlety of the great Nicole. Glover plays the same sympathetic but ultimately irritating character he always plays. The rest of the cast are mediocre at best and the story is plodding and predictable - there is a twist but it fails to get the pulse racing. There's still one more film left in the trilogy - let's hope the director gets out on location for it.

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Pretentious? Maybe. Good? Definitely.

Richard Lewis from North East of England , 19/06/2006

Like Dogville, the lack of set and the strange narrative style gives this a feel of a group of sixth formers trying to disguise their lack of prop-buying funds as radical theatre. But look beyond this, and Von Trier tells an enthralling story, complete with twists, which is well worth following to it's thought provoking conclusion. Easy to watch? No, and not just because it looks like it's filmed in a warehouse. It deals with heavy subject matter, pulls no punches, and left me with more questions than it answered. But then, that's what good films do.

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Boring

filmfanatical from Tooting, London , 04/10/2007

I quite liked Dogville and this is the sequel. I found it so boring I had to turn it off despite it's great cast.

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brilliant

A customer from watford, england , 19/09/2006

fantastic sequal(ish) to Dogville. if you got through the 1st half hour of that you'll need to see this film. can't really describe it only to say at times it's unpredicatable whilst harbouring an underlying inevitability. slavery as fact and concept, past and pesent has never been so effectively portrayed.

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