Arquivo

In Manderlay, Alabama, in 1933, an isolated community live as though slavery had not ended in the U.S. 70 years previously. White masters dispose of the lives of their black laborers in the same way as centuries before. When Grace and her father, a powerful gangster, are passing by the gates of a large property, they come upon a woman calling for help. She beseeches them to help stop Timothy, a slave, from being whipped. Shocked at the situation, Grace complies, with the assistance of her father?s strongmen. Manderlay is controlled with a rod of iron by Mam, the old woman who owns the estate. On her death bed she asks Grace to burn the book containing the so-called "Law of Mam", a record of all of the authoritarian norms that determine life in the community. Grace refuses. With the death of the old matriarch, the girl takes over, extinguishes slavery, and establishes a new social organization. At first, all are part of a joint effort on the plantation. Natural disasters and new conflicts, however, hold the new model in check. Manderlay is the second part of a trilogy on the U.S. begun with the film Dogville.