Manderlay

No longer the righteous angel of Dogville, Grace heads to the 1933 Alabaman plantation to oversee the slaves’ emancipation. Striving to democratise the slaves, the guilt-ridden, do-good heroine’s efforts are ultimately confounded; her downfall predicated upon her missionary-like assumptions about civilisation and savagery. Reprising his stylistic devices in Brechtian austerity, von Trier makes his resolute statement on racial inequality and the nature of freedom in this chilly and cynical parable. John Hurt’s narration and David Bowie’s Young Americans set the sardonic tone of an epic diatribe not only the legacy of American slavery, but human nature itself.

Cannes Film Festival: In Competition