Manderlay

Empire David Parkinson

Unstintingly raw and cynical, this disconcerting and deeply affecting State Of The Union treatise regularly comes dangerously close to caricature.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

One of the best things about real Americans is that we can stand criticism. Informed or idiotic, scholarly or superficial, it's all welcome.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

The acting has the bravura stage eloquence of Broadway Shakespeare and the movie is narrated, beautifully, by John Hurt.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Anybody can make a movie that's anti-slavery. But to make a movie that's explicitly anti-democracy-that's something.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I wouldn't go so far as to claim Manderlay is fun to watch. Von Trier, who can made compulsively watchable films ("Breaking the Waves"), has found a style that will alienate most audiences. Maybe it's necessary.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

To state the obvious, Manderlay is often patently offensive in its racial politics, and it surely isn't for everyone. It is, however, very funny, very dark and very skillfully played.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

It's true, of course, that Trier still hasn't set foot on U.S. soil, but it may be that he sees us, in all our virtue and victimhood, that much more clearly for it.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Lars von Trier is back, so to speak--he's never visited the States, which makes his snide anti-American allegories even more infuriating to some….But the story holds up well enough to deliver a pointed critique of establishing self-rule at gunpoint.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

To warm to Manderlay, the chilly second installment of Lars von Trier's not-yet-finished three-part Brechtian allegory examining United States history, you must be willing to tolerate the derision and moral arrogance of a snide European intellectual thumbing his nose at American barbarism.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

It's an extremely cynical perspective, enforced by some disappointingly turgid melodrama, but keep in mind, this movie was made before an almost uniformly poor and black population was left to rot in New Orleans floodwaters. Even at his worst, von Trier can still strike a nerve.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It's so ruthlessly witty and meticulously plotted -- unexpectedly so, given its messy dramatic sprawl -- that it delivers a satisfying kick.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

A misfire, but a misfire from von Trier is still more interesting than a blandly successful Hollywood product.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Spike Lee has been treading similar terrain with both greater cogency and fewer similarities to Bertolt Brecht. Manderlay, though, is mad and perplexed in its own inscrutable, schematic way. The trouble is the angrier it gets, the more infuriatingly banal it becomes.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Howard struggles with the role Kidman nailed. And the graphic nude scene in which "proudy slave" Timothy (Isaach De Bankole) puts a towel over Grace's head before ravishing her pale body is as rugged on the audience as it is on the actors.

Film Threat Michael Ferraro

If you hated "Dogville" because of the overage of narration or the length of time it took to finally get to a point, you'll be pleased to know that von Trier has lessened both those elements. With that said, it still has some of the same flaws.

TV Guide Ken Fox

The film's conceits grow thin and von Trier's mocking, hectoring tone tiresome.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Nothing von Trier presents here, whether real or imagined, is fresh or new.

Variety Todd McCarthy

The subject being race relations, Manderlay is bound to stir considerable debate in intellectual circles, but given the director's abstract style and use of characters to enact an agenda, it's a discussion that will exclude the general public, who will ignore it as they did "Dogville."

Los Angeles Times Josh Kun

Trier gets lost in his own rhetoric, forgetting to entertain his flock while raking them over the coals.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

In truth, von Trier is not so much a filmmaker as a misanthropic mesmerist, who uses movies to bend the viewer to his humorless will.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Plagued by moralizing so strident and a style so artificial that the story never has a chance to speak to an audience.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

No matter where he (Von Trier) begins, his dramatic compass drifts toward the same pole: the sexual humiliation of his heroine (How could Daddy let you do this, Bryce?). But it's hard to get too worked up over racial injustice when a director has the temperament of a Klansman.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

All of this plays out as flat, didactic, and lazy.

Slate Dana Stevens

Perhaps the saddest thing about Manderlay is how poorly von Trier treats his actors, who are so bludgeoned by the concept and the format they can scarcely breathe.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Another ridiculous anti-American screed by the minimalist Danish director Lars von Trier, who has never set foot in this country.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The film is obvious, weak and scattered and seems more like a practical joke than a work of genuine passion. It is without exaggeration one of the most blindingly boring films I've seen in years.

Washington Post Philip Kennicott

Even the basic look of the film -- it was filmed on a stage with every shot set against a bleak, dark backdrop -- underscores the filmmaker's position as master manipulator, in a laboratory, looking down at his mice running through his maze.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Manderlay is turgid and hollow.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Hate is too strong an emotion to spend on such a clumsy, bloodless broadside against human foibles in general and American follies in particular.