[urdevil]

Originally Posted by psycho d

Manderlay (2005). Our characters come straight from the drama in Dogville and fall right into the next chapter, only to face the difficulties of slavery, emancipation, and ruse that is democracy. At first this flick seemed to have nothing new to offer; yes, Dogville was that good. In fact, it was rather slow from an action point of view. Whereas Dogville was fresh and edgy, Manderlay is slow but deep, its power hidden in the dogma of culture. And when this so-called dogma gets called into question, Americans are forced to question the very basis of our existence. Working at many differing levels and having multiple parallels, Manderlay is one of those lovely flicks that exposes the icky hypocrisy of self-righteousness. It does so by threatening to expose "whitey's" festering guilt from the institution of slavery as appreciated through the racially difficult realities of emancipation, keeping the champions of denial and self-righteousness removed from the appropriate movie theaters. Technically, the movie is slow though philosophically brilliant. The story was thought out so as to work on many levels. At most points it seems to be predictable but of course keeps the cinematic soothsayer from earning his nickel. Lars once again extracts every ounce of talent from its cast. As such, the direction and camera work are sublime. And just around this flick's finish, good ol' William Defoe graces us with laughable dialog that will inevitably send us straight to Hell for having laughed at his abominable utterance. Merci beaucoup.

I just wanted your thoughts about the director. Ive seen Breaking the Waves, Dogville, Dancer in the Dark and yes Antichrist. I enjoyed Breaking the Waves and Antichrist(as much as anyone could) but the other two were absolute prententious rubbish(IMO). What do you think about his work overall?.