Manderlay/Dogville
Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Danny Glover, Isaac de Bankole (Manderlay); Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Patricia Clarkson (Dogville)
Director: Lars von Trier
The film: As the enfant terrible of contemporary filmmaking, Lars von Trier has done his reputation no harm with the USA: Land of Opportunities trilogy, through which he attempts to scrutinise the basic values that founded American history and society.
The first two offerings - last year's Manderlay and Dogville from 2003 - were sometimes astonishingly brutal, as much as they were revealing about human nature. Driven by von Trier's agitation against the US, the films steamroll over factual coherence and political sensitivity. And with moments of gratuitous sexual and verbal violence, some scenes are nearly unwatchable.
It's here that von Trier displays his unquestioned gifts as a master manipulator. However much one may despise facets in Dogville and Manderlay, the films are compulsive enough to draw you deeper into their despair and destruction. Both are shot on barren stages, where houses, streets and rooms are delineated with lines, but they're powerfully emotive. With nothing to fall back on, the cast is forced to conjure its own tours de force.