Vibeke Windeløv

The principal seven divisions are each populated by a single adult slave at Manderlay, who congregate daily and converse on a "parade ground," with Roman numerals of the numbers 1 through 7 designating where each slave stands. "Mam's Law" contains further provisions against the use of cash by slaves, or the felling of trees on the property for timber. All of this information disgusts Grace and inspires her to take charge of the plantation in order to punish the slave owners and prepare the slaves for life as free individuals. In order to guarantee that the former slaves will not continue to be exploited, no longer as slaves but instead as sharecroppers, Grace orders Joseph to draw up contracts for all Manderlay's inhabitants, institutionalizing a form of cooperative living in which the white family works as slaves and the blacks collectively own the plantation and its crops. Throughout this process, Grace lectures all those present about the notions of freedom and democracy, using rhetoric entirely in keeping with the ideology of racial equality which most contemporary Americans had yet to embrace. She is challenged by Timothy, who will turn out to be a trickster and she begins to get sexual fantasies, making him a fetish, as it is suggested that she is sexually starved and hasn't been intimate. With these distractions, as the film progresses, Grace fails to embed these principles in Manderlay's community in a form she considers satisfactory. Furthermore, her suggestions for improving the conditions of the community backfire on several occasions, such as using the surrounding trees for timber, which leaves the crops vulnerable to dust storms. After a year of such tribulations, the community harvests its cotton and successfully sells it, marking the high point of Grace's involvement. After her gangsters leave and thus her armed protection, Timothy forcefully grabs her as she seeks to bring him dinner. Grace is now in a submissive position, instead of a leader, and her progressive ideals fall around her ankles, as she is stripped by Timothy. Subsequently, she painfully has sex with him, as he puts the handkerchief over her face and aggressive penetrates her in a fashion of used trash, an object, suggesting that he unleashes his anger and frustrations that he has for her, using her sexual fantasies against her. She screams in pain and ecstasy, but while sleeping, Wilhelm report that some has stolen and gambled away all of the cotton profits. The conversation is suggestive that others heard her being sexually conquered by Timothy, and she feels her shame at the joke she made to the gangsters as they left, and now not being able to awaken Timothy, as he is drunk. It is revealed that Timothy is actually the one who has stolen and gambled their earnings, and Grace finds out the whole truth, that he lied to her and tricked her into bed, pretending to be a noble African, but was just a womanizing gambler and a drinker. Finally admitting her failure, Grace contacts her father and attempts to leave the plantation only to be stopped by the plantation's blacks. At this point it is revealed that "Mam's Law" was not conceived and enforced by Mam or any of the other whites, but instead by Wilhelm, the community's eldest member, as a means of maintaining the status quo after the abolition of slavery, protecting the blacks from a hostile outside world. The people of Manderlay then tell Grace to punish Timothy for what he did by whipping him. She obliges, to release her hurt at giving her body over to him to have him use her painfully and ultimately having tricked her into bed as if she were just another whore, and she whips him with all of her might as a result. Grace then finds a letter from her father, explaining that he came to get her while she was whipping Timothy. He assumed that this was what she meant by claiming that Manderlay had come upon new times and that she had accepted them as slaves. Grace then runs away to another unrevealed place. As in many von Trier films, the idealistic main character becomes frustrated by the reality he or she encounters.

Dogville is a very small American town in the Rocky Mountains with a road leading up to it, but nowhere to go but the mountains. The film begins with a prologue in which we meet a dozen or so of the fifteen citizens. They are portrayed as lovable, good people with small flaws which are easy to forgive. The town is seen from the point of view of Tom Edison (Paul Bettany), an aspiring writer who procrastinates by trying to get his fellow citizens together for regular meetings on the subject of "moral rearmament." It is clear that Tom wants to succeed his aging father as the moral and spiritual leader of the town. It is Tom who first meets Grace (Nicole Kidman), who is on the run from gangsters who apparently shot at her. Grace, a beautiful but modest woman, wants to keep running, but Tom assures her that the mountains ahead are too difficult to pass. As they talk, the gangsters approach the town, and Tom quickly hides Grace in a nearby mine. One of the gangsters asks Tom if he has seen the woman, which he denies, and so the gangster offers him a reward and hands him a card with a phone number to call in case Grace shows up. Tom decides to use Grace as an "illustration" in his next meeting - a way for the townspeople to prove that they are indeed committed to community values, and willing to help the stranger. They remain skeptical, so Tom proposes that Grace should be given a chance to prove that she is a good person. Grace is accepted for two weeks in which, as Tom explains to her after the meeting, she has to convince the townspeople to like her. On Tom's suggestion, Grace offers to do chores for the citizens - talking to the lonely, blind Jack McCay (Ben Gazzara), helping to run the small shop, looking after the children of Chuck (Stellan Skarsgård) and Vera (Patricia Clarkson), and so forth. After some initial reluctance, the people accept her help in doing those chores that "nobody really needs" but which nevertheless make life better, and so she becomes a part of the community. In tacit agreement, she is expected to continue her chores, which she does gladly, and is even paid small wages in return. Grace begins to make friends, including Jack, who pretends that he is not blind. Grace tricks him into admitting that he is blind, earning his respect. After the two weeks are over, everyone votes that she should be allowed to stay. But when the police arrive to place a "Missing" poster with Grace's picture and name on it on the mission house, the mood darkens slightly. Should they not cooperate with the police? Still, things continue as usual until the 4th of July celebrations. After Tom awkwardly admits his love to Grace and the whole town expresses their agreement that it has become a better place thanks to her, the police arrive again to replace the "Missing" poster with a "Wanted" poster. Grace is now wanted for participation in a bank robbery. Everyone agrees that she must be innocent, since at the time the robbery took place, she was doing chores for the townspeople every day. Nevertheless, Tom argues that because of the increased risk to the town now that they are harboring someone who is wanted as a criminal, Grace should provide a quid pro quo and do more chores for the townspeople within the same time, for less pay. At this point, what was previously a voluntary arrangement takes on a slightly coercive nature as Grace is clearly uncomfortable with the idea. Still, being very amenable and wanting to please Tom, Grace agrees. At this point the situation worsens, as with her additional workload, Grace inevitably makes mistakes, and the people she works for seem to be equally irritated by the new schedule and take it out on Grace. The situation slowly escalates, with the male citizens making small sexual advances to Grace and the female ones becoming increasingly abusive. Even the children are perverse: Jason (Miles Purinton), the perhaps 10-year-old son of Chuck and Vera, asks Grace to spank him, until she finally complies after much provocation. Soon thereafter Chuck returns home and rapes Grace, as it becomes obvious that she is hardly able to defend herself against exploitation. After Tom discusses the possibility of escape with her, Grace is blamed by Vera both for spanking Jason and for being raped by Chuck. In revenge, Vera threatens Grace with destroying the porcelain figurines created by the town shop that she had acquired with the little wages she was given, Grace begs for mercy, reminding Vera of how she taught her children about stoicism. In response, Vera challenges Grace to stand up without shedding a tear while she destroys the first two of the porcelain figurines. Grace not being able to hold her tears, Vera destroys the remaining figurines. The symbol of her belonging in the town gone, she now knows that she must leave. With the help of Tom and Ben, the freight driver, she attempts escape in his apple truck, only to find herself raped by Ben and then returned to the town. The town agrees that they must not let her escape again. The money that she used to pay Ben had been taken by Tom from his father, and Grace is blamed for the theft. Tom refuses to come forward because, he explains, this is the only way he can still protect Grace without people getting suspicious. At this point, Grace's status as slave is finally confirmed as she is collared and chained to a large iron wheel which she must carry around with her, too heavy to allow her to move anywhere outside the town. More humiliatingly still, a bell is attached to her collar and announces her presence wherever she goes. Tom is the only male citizen of the town that does not rape her. This culminates in a late night general assembly in which Grace following Tom's suggestion relates calmly all that she has endured from everyone in town. Embarrassed and in complete denial, the townspeople finally decide to get rid of her. When Tom informs Grace to console her, he attempts to make love to her, having been the only adult male townperson who hasn't had sex with her. Grace, however, refuses to have sex with him. Angry partly at Grace's rejection, but even more at himself for his realization that he would eventually stoop to force himself upon her like everyone else in the town, Tom ends up personally calling the mobsters, and later proposes to unanimous approval that she be locked up in her shack. When the mobsters finally arrive, they are welcomed cordially by Tom and an impromptu committee of other townspeople. Grace is then freed and we finally learn who she really is: the daughter of a powerful gang leader who ran away because she could not stand her father's dirty work. Her father confronts her in his big limousine and tells her that she is arrogant for not holding others to the same high standards to which she holds herself. At first she refuses to listen, but as she looks again upon the town and its people, she is compelled to agree: she would have to condemn them to the worst possible punishment if she held them to her own standards, and it would be inhumane not to do so. So she accepts to be again her father's daughter, and immediately demands that the whole town be eliminated. In particular, she gives the order to have Vera look on at the murder of each of her children, having been told that it would stop if she can hold back her tears. The film ends in a crescendo of violence: the town is burned and all its citizens are brutally murdered by the gangsters on direct order from Grace, with the exception of Tom, whom she kills personally with a revolver. As the ashes of Dogville smolder around her, she finds and spares the only surviving resident, Moses the Dogville dog. Ironically, the only "dog" that hasn't wronged her was the town dog that had disappeared while the town was revealing its true nature. (Source: WikiPedia, Bangs_McCoy)

Selma is a young Czech mother living in Washington state in the early 1960s. How she loves musicals! Alas, she is going blind, and this is threatening her job (not to say her limbs) at the local factory, where she is friends with Cathy, who is a bit flummoxed by Selma's increasing workload, which includes pinning hairpins to unbent cardboard as a side job. Selma lives with her understandably ungrateful 12-year-old delinquent son in a mobile trailer on the property of a local sheriff and his happy-go-lucky wife. One day, the sheriff reveals a dark secret to Selma, and being the type to cement friendships, she tells him a secret, too: that she is going blind. Life spirals downard for her after this revelation, but Selma is resolute in protecting her friend's secret. Cathy, who grows increasingly frustrated with Selma's decisions, comes to realize Selma's methodology was right after all, and in the gripping final moments of the film, she tells Selma that she did right. This is a curious, highly depressing, yet exhilarating film (with various experimental camera techniques) about the power of friendship and maternal love -- not to be watched alone!

BREAKING the WAVES The story was about love, faith and confidence. A small coastal village in North Scotland, in 1970s.The village neighborhood didnt like foreigners, especially when those people worshiped different religions. The public of this village were very pious. In un-developed regions, women arent allowed to participate in the funeral ceremonies. The film was the first film of a trilogy, the names of which Golden Heart series. The movie was recorded by a hand-held camera, that brings audiences into the place. This technique made the fiction more realistic. The main character was Bess who had some mental problems and a childish manner. She had to be taken care of by her family members. She was talking with herself with a God Voice and tried to find a way to endure her pain. In the early chapters, we saw, Bess and Jan got married, had an incredible honeymoon and sexual experience. When Jan started to work, she missed him very much and begged God for the return her husband immediately. Everything changed with an accident. When Jan was in the oil-rig, he injured his neck and completely paralyzed. When Bess learned the accident, first she was very happy but then she started to blame herself. Their sex relations remained to fall down that situation. Jan asked her to take a lover and tell him the details. Because Jan knew Besss church wouldnt permit divorce. What do we think about Jans suggestion? Did he really want to get rid of her, for her sake? Or did he just think about himself? I think the story didnt answer this question. We should think about a man who was completely paralyzed and became selfish. Dodo, who was Besss sister-in-law, said sickness is a mighty power They quarreled about Besss situation. Jan believed Bess has more strength than them. Because of the whole painful process, Jan attempted to kill himself. When he failed, he asked Dodo for help for his own suicide. Dodo denied his request, she thought the second death would be very damaging for Bess. Bess had recently lost her brother. On the other side, Bess started to commit adultery. She believed in God and convinced herself if she did some sacrifices, Jan would be able to recovered. When she mentioned her bus experience, Jans reaction was unclearly. Was he relieved or annoyed? I think the most impressive chapter was the sixth one called Faith. In that chapter she started to go cheap bars and chose the ugliest guys. She punished herself that way. Meanwhile her reputation had become very damaged in the small village. Only Jans doctor and Dodo realized her tough condition. Bess had attempted to seduce the doctor too. Maybe he also liked her too, but didnt want to use her case. Everyone around her started to become aware of her sinful behavior. They even didnt tolerate her attitude. Her church, her neighbors, even her mother, everyone around her rejected her. In those kinds of small villages, people can be very cruel about morality. Which is the biggest sin? Who are the biggest sinners in this condition? Social rules are pressure in a small society. Actually, in this story everybody suffered a lot but they pretended to remain innocent while they pushed her down the cliff. I think miracles arent always fair. They can cause some kind of miserable consequences. At the end of the movie the unexpected miracle happened; the man recovered but he also lost his wife. The villagers wanted to punish her body too. They refused to bury her appropriately. Jan stole the body and gave her a real funeral. She buried at sea with the sound of bells. Here we have a story which argues what is right or wrong in love. If we were Bess, how many of us could be strong in love? ? To love a man and never hesitate to do some kind of tough sacrifices