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Reviews
Manderlay (2005)
it's a von Trier - so what do you expect
I have already several years ago decided that Lars von Trier's movies can neither be called good or bad, they are always different and thought provoking but most certainly also irritating and annoying. Manderlay is no exception.
Our heroin spots a dictator on the axis of evil, storms in with light sabers and an ever-optimistic smile, brushes away the dictator and her regime, and is proud of having brought freedom and democracy to yet another place (any similarities with other persons - living or dead - are fully intentional and of course debatable).
But how do you make democracy work when people have not learned it through practice and the collective memory of democracy's fallacies since the ancient Greek city states. How do you make people value their freedom and be responsible for their own fortune, when it is much more comfortable to blame someone else for their fate.
Von Trier brilliantly and ironically discusses these issues with surprising twists in the plot. But he will most definitely offend all kinds of Americans who will be too rash to judge this movie as anything between a misunderstanding and an insult of the American people of whatever color.
Bryce Dallas Howard (Grace) delivers a great performance.
To make a movie on an almost naked stage with imaginary doors etc. is very different from anything else and it actually could contribute to focus more on the actors performance (as on a theater stage). But I think that the hasty cutting of scenes and the annoyingly shaky hand-held camera actually diminish the actors chances of delivering a forceful performance. I don't mind the hand-held camera of the Dogma movies, but this is no Dogma movie. It has "artificial" music, sound effects, lightning, requisites, etc. So why bother to have a hand-held camera.
Manderlay is an excellent movie for anybody who enjoys being provoked or how wants to confirm her/his prejudice about von Trier as a weird director with tendencies to be proud-to-be-old-Europe.
Adams æbler (2005)
Fabulous story, excellent acting
Inspired by the Book of Job, this movie is set in a rural church with Ivan, the church's vicar, and Adam, a neo-Nazi on social service, as protagonists. In and around this church, Anders Thomas Jensens unleashes an outright war of good and evil in a story full of black humor that leaves the viewer little choice but to laugh tears. Ole Thestrup as the local doctor beats everybody and everything in terms of comic morbidity.
And yet behind all comedy, Adams Æbler discusses much more serious issues. Is not Ivan's naive (in danish the perfect anagram: naiv Ivan) denial of evil more dangerous and irresponsible than Adam's evil, but realistic attitude? While Ivan suggests as Adam's project to bake an apple pie, Adam is set out to break Ivans faith in God. The audience is seriously in doubt as to which project will be accomplished and what comes after that. In the pursuit of both projects, Ivan and Adam change places and take responsibility in very surprising and strange ways. This story is told with perfect timing and moving gravity realised by great actors.
Despite all praise, I have one problem with this movie: I did not get the pun about the "Adam's Apple". Why make this play of words without making use of it in the story? And while I'm at it, the last scene should have been left out. Adam becomes ... well no, I won't spoil it.