chosen by Jeani
The film
Grace the gangster's daughter discovers a slave colony working a cotton plantation. She frees them, just as their 'owner' Mam dies, and Grace sets out to establish democracy, self-determination and the opportunity to prosper. But her naivety and inability to find out who the people are lead to more and more problems, and she finds herself behaving in ways she would not have anticipated.
This is the second film in Lars von Trier's trilogy 'USA - Land of Opportunities'. It's filmed in the same style as Dogville, which we saw a year ago - no scenery, minimal props, a narrator and a story-book feel.
The response
Tom & Jeani chose Manderley because of the strong response to Dogville last year. Most of us found Manderley much easier to watch, even though the subject matter was uncomfortable. There were loads of questions - Why did Grace stay? Why did Willem allow and even encourage her to behave as she did? Why didn't the slaves plant cotton when they knew they had to?
I (Juliet) thought this was a straightforward metaphor for the state of racial inequality in the USA. But we also found ourselves talking about free will, consciousness, leadership. OK, what would we do if Grace turned up in our street?
I missed the part of the discussion about what we would do if Grace turned up on our street- what was the general feeling? As I thought about it I realised that I was only thinking about how the women would react to her..which is odd as the power struggles in both the films seem to between Grace and various men. So maybe it says more about me than the films, or perhaps there is something problematic about the way Grace's relationships with women are presented in the films.
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