Reviews: Manderlay (DVD); Clerks II
Aug. 14th, 2006 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caitriLars von Trier's Manderlay is the second in his America Trilogy, following Dogville. The sequel follows some of the same characters played by different actors as they find a slave plantation in 1930s Mississippi and have to explain the new-fangled concepts of "freedom" and "democracy." They are led by Danny Glover and it doesn't go over that well. Thesis: Well-meaning white folk with uppity ideas of equality are just as racist as people who use the n-word, and since they're the ones who made black people what they are, there's no point in trying to change them. Or something. The arguments every which way are pretty whacked-out. Mostly what I really crave is an interview with Danny Glover explaining what he thought what the hell was going on. Suffice to say the best part of this film, like the predecessor's, was the credit sequence in which overly upbeat soundtrack is contrasted with photos of oppression (here, lynchings, KKK meetings, protests, and my personal favorite, a black janitor scrubbing Lincoln's Monument face).
Also, why is von Trier, of Denmark, so hung up on America's fallacies? Cos I think after last year's Muslim cartoon fuck-up, his country kinda lost the moral high ground. Just sayin'.
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Clerks II made me as happy as Manderlay made me depressed. It's one of those rare sequels that's as good as if not surpassing the first film. It's also refreshing to see the return of the same actors, not so graceful in middle-age; after too much Hollywood plastic people, you forget what real people look like. There's also the excellent, um, debates over what is the "true" trilogy--Star Wars or LOTR. Oh and the inexplicable perfectly choreographed dance sequence to the Jackson Five's "ABC." On the serious side, there is discussion on what it means to grow up and have a real life.
Me happy.
Also, why is von Trier, of Denmark, so hung up on America's fallacies? Cos I think after last year's Muslim cartoon fuck-up, his country kinda lost the moral high ground. Just sayin'.
~~
Clerks II made me as happy as Manderlay made me depressed. It's one of those rare sequels that's as good as if not surpassing the first film. It's also refreshing to see the return of the same actors, not so graceful in middle-age; after too much Hollywood plastic people, you forget what real people look like. There's also the excellent, um, debates over what is the "true" trilogy--Star Wars or LOTR. Oh and the inexplicable perfectly choreographed dance sequence to the Jackson Five's "ABC." On the serious side, there is discussion on what it means to grow up and have a real life.
Me happy.
