When Lars von Trier's Dogville screened in competition at Cannes two years ago, some members of the American press, most notably Variety's Todd McCarthy, took the naughty Dane's anti-American's potshots rather personally. This week, the festival announced that Manderlay, the second installment in the director's "American Trilogy" would be making its way to the Croisette next month.

According to the film's website, Manderlay picks up where Dogville left off. This time, our erstwhile 1930's heroine Grace (played by Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of Ron Howard, who took on the role after Nicole Kidman dropped out), discovers a town in Alabama where people have been living as if slavery had never been abolished. She then decides to make things right. While I haven't seen the film, I've got a pretty good idea of what von Trier likes to do to people with good intentions, especially when they're dealing with "Americans," so I'm keeping my fingers crosses for poor Grace. (Will she ever learn?)

After watching the film's trailer, in which John Hurt soberly intones the different classifications of "nigger" over shots of Danny Glover and Isaach De Bankole, among others, I can only imagine what McCarthy is going to say about this one.
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# posted by Matthew Ross @ 4/22/2005 02:50:00 PM