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Last Updated: Nov 2nd, 2009 - 17:32:57 |
CANNES, France - Lars von Trier, one of cinema's most eccentric troublemakers, returned to the screen Monday with "Manderlay", the latest chapter in his trilogy skewering what he sees as American hypocrisy.
The notoriously testy Dane has swapped Nicole Kidman -- the leading lady in his groundbreaking "Dogville" -- for Bryce Dallas Howard, the daughter of director Ron, in his latest contender at the Cannes film festival.
"Manderlay" picks up where "Dogville" left off, taking Grace, the daughter of a gangster (Willem Dafoe), to a small town in America where she is left to fend for herself in a deceptively threatening environment.
This time the setting is an Alabama plantation where blacks are still being held as slaves 70 years after the end of the Civil War.
As the mistress of the house (Lauren Bacall) dies, Grace takes it upon herself to "free" the slaves and help their transition to independence -- a theme some viewers compared to the troubled "liberation" of Iraq by the US-led coalition.
Grace begins educating the blacks in the ways of democracy, while the former white slaveowners are forced to work in the fields, and is quickly appalled with the choices her pupils make when the shoe is on the other foot.
The film covers familiar ground for Von Trier, who has a paralyzing fear of flying and has never visited America and yet regularly tackles the darker sides of US culture in his work.
Von Trier explained the obsession at a news conference after the well-received press screening.
"We are a nation under influence, under very bad influence from America I would say right now also because I think Mr. Bush is an asshole and doing a lot of completely idiotic things," he said of the US president George W. Bush.
"America is kind of sitting on the world, there's no question about it.... In fact I am an American. But I can't go there to vote. I can't change anything because I'm from a small country. I can just sit there and be American. And that is why I make films about America and I don't think it's so strange."
With its bare-bones stage sets and storybook structure, the film is visually similar to "Dogville".
Kidman, who was put through a miserable ordeal in front of the camera in that film, famously and publicly pledged to Von Trier at the 2003 Cannes film festival to reprise the role of the Grace but later backed out due to "scheduling conflicts".
Howard echoed the promise at Monday's news conference, saying she would love to appear in "Washington", part three of the trilogy.
"I would amputate my toes to work with Lars again. That's not really an exaggeration honestly. And if he does 'Washington' and if there is a place for me in that film I would absolutely do that," she said.
"Manderlay" and David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence", starring Viggo Mortensen and also appearing Monday, are among 21 films in the running for the Palme d'Or at the 58th Cannes film festival, which runs through May 22.
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