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Manderlay

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Manderlay (2006)

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Reviews Counted:95

Fresh:48

Rotten:47

Average Rating:5.6/10

Consensus: Manderlay may work better as a political statement than as a film, making its points at the expense of telling a compelling story.

Runtime: 2 hrs 19 mins

Genre: Dramas

Synopsis: This is the strange, disturbing story of the Manderlay plantation. Manderlay lay on a lonely plain somewhere in the deep south of the USA. It was in the year of 1933 that Grace and her father... This is the strange, disturbing story of the Manderlay plantation. Manderlay lay on a lonely plain somewhere in the deep south of the USA. It was in the year of 1933 that Grace and her father had left the township of Dogville behind them. Grace's father and his army of villains had spent the entire winter seeking out new hunting grounds in vain, and now they were heading south in one last attempt to find a favourable location in which to take up residence. By chance their cars stop in the state of Alabama in front of a large iron gate bearing a thick chain and a padlock. Beside the gate, a dead oak tree towers over a heavy boulder with Manderlay hewn in monumental letters into the granite. Just as Grace, her father and his men are about to leave after a short break and a quick lunch, a young black woman runs up to the car. She knocks on Grace's window. She hammers at the glass in despair. Ignoring her father’s advice to leave others to their own affairs, Grace follows the girl through the gates of Manderlay and there, she finds a group of people living as if slavery had not been abolished seventy years earlier, with white masters and black slaves... Grace believes that she has a duty to make it up to the slaves for injustices they have suffered at the hands of her kind: 'we brought them here, we abused them and made them what they are', as she argues to her father; and she decides that having liberated Manderlay, she will remain at the plantation until she has seen them through their first harvest. Her father grudgingly leaves her with four henchmen and a lawyer, warning Grace that he won't be there to pick up the pieces when her plans for the resurrection of Manderlay fall apart... --© IFC Films [More]

Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach de Bankolé, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe

Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Isaach de Bankolé, Danny Glover, Willem Dafoe, Michael Abiteboul, Lauren Bacall, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier, John Hurt, Chloe Sevigny

Director: Lars von Trier

Director: Lars von Trier
Screenwriter: Lars von Trier
Producer: Vibeke Windelov
Studio: IFC Films

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Reviews for Manderlay

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1 - 20 (sorted by comments; UK critics are listed first)
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Watching this film is an edifying but frustrating experience; dull in parts, amusing and illuminating in others. You’d still struggle to call it entertainment.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Dave Calhoun
Dave Calhoun
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Unstintingly raw and cynical.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
04/01/06
David Parkinson
David Parkinson
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Not necessarily as pertinent as it attempts to be.

Full Review Source: FilmFocus | comment Comment
03/11/06
Joe Utichi
Joe Utichi
FilmFocus

There's a troubling sense that von Trier is simply going through the motions.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
02/21/06
Matthew Leyland
Matthew Leyland
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Manderlay isn't as powerful or as intense as Dogville, but it is still an intriguing and entertaining film, thanks to Bryce Dallas Howard's performance and John Hurt's hugely enjoyable narration.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
10/29/05
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
03/04/06
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
01/20/07
Philip French
Philip French
Observer [UK]

A slow-burning, deeply disturbing fable that needs to be seen and discussed

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
10/27/05
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

The audience's familiarity with the stylistic devices of Manderlay should allow the film's more reflective screenplay to shine through.

Full Review Source: Sight and Sound | comment Comment
09/28/06
Ryan Gilbey
Ryan Gilbey
Sight and Sound

tastes like cough syrup; we may not like what we see but we really need to see it

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment 1 Comment
10/10/05
Chris Cabin
Chris Cabin
Filmcritic.com

With "Manderlay," Lars von Trier has finally lost me. He has made an avid fan feel tired and abused.

Full Review Source: About.com | comment 1 Comment
10/08/05
Marcy Dermansky
Marcy Dermansky
About.com

Von Trier, there's no doubt about it, has become a taxidermist of America's sins, but the way he puts those sins on display only to thumb his nose at them marks him as a new style of prankster-hypocrite.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment 1 Comment
02/01/06
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Entertainment Weekly

If von Trier can't be bothered to get out more, he should at least consider picking up a book or just using some real imagination.

Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | comment 1 Comment
03/24/06
Terry Lawson
Terry Lawson
Detroit Free Press
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Toronto Star | comment Comment
01/28/06
Toronto Star

There's nothing derivative about von Trier's telling, style and ultimate effect.

Full Review Source: E! Online | comment Comment
02/03/06
E! Online
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | comment Comment
02/25/06
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[von Trier's] most streamlined and subversive provocation to date... Be wary of any critic who attacks the filmmaker instead of addressing the film itself.

Full Review Source: Premiere Magazine | comment Comment
10/08/05
Aaron Hillis
Aaron Hillis
Premiere Magazine

It may be that the director has overreached in Manderlay by trying to deal with racial conflicts in an excessively abstract manner.

Full Review Source: New York Observer | comment Comment
01/26/06
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
New York Observer

There are any number of ways to read Manderlay...

Full Review Source: Los Angeles CityBeat | comment Comment
02/27/06
Andy Klein
Andy Klein
Los Angeles CityBeat

I am glad that [Von Trier] exists, to decry our sins, but, with another sequel to come (Manderlay is the centerpiece of a trilogy), I am even gladder that he is one of a kind.

Full Review Source: New Yorker | comment Comment
01/30/06
Anthony Lane
Anthony Lane
New Yorker
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by comments; UK critics are listed first)
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