I found this pretty good, despite still finding a lot of things about the 'USA' trilogy ill-conceived both aesthetically and ideologically. I definitely liked this a lot more than "Dogville" though. I thought that Bryce Dallas Howard did a hell of a better job than Nicole Kidman did, for one thing, and overall I thought the performances were all generally better and less stilted, even though the dialogue is still odd and clunky in parts. I also thought the story was a bit more creative and less recycled than it was in "Dogville", although Von Trier still seems to have a perverse fascination with degrading his female characters. I have no problem with a rape scene in and of itself, but after what, five films now of women getting mistreated with no redemption it seems a little unsettling and frankly a bit immature of Von Trier to keep doing it, especially when he has never even portrayed a male/female relationship that is at all positive in any way (well, maybe the beginning of "Breaking the Waves"?). Besides that, I also think there are a great deal of major flaws with Von Trier's entire approach to this trilogy. Although the sound stage gimmick (yes, I do think it's a gimmick) was less distracting here than in "Dogville" (keeping the background dark a lot of the time helped), I still get the overwhelming feeling of watching what is essentially a human puppet show. The film is not really about actual people, but vessels which Von Trier uses to act out a parable. I've said it before, but stories that are purely allegorical like this one bug me. Of course, Von Trier's films have almost always been this way, but at least in the Golden Hearts trilogy the didacticness was hidden by the real-world, cinema-verite presentation. Because "Mandarlay" has much better, less theatrical acting than "Dogville" did it bothers me much less, but I still found myself actively thinking that the film would be more engaging and in general just better if it had been filmed in real locations. It retrospect it's remarkable that I even found the film as engaging as I did. There is really no reason for the sound stage gimmick. As far as I'm concerned, the use of sound-effects in the film (such as the sound of opening a door when there is none) is just as much empty cleverness as any film can be. Von Trier is just being "different" for the sake of it with stuff like that. It's a good thing that I found the acting as compelling as I did. Particularly from Bryce Dallas Howard. In truth I think Von Trier basically owes the entire watchibility of his indulgent project to her, and ironically he probably treated her as he has all his female leads, which is to say, badly. Although I also found the story to be an improvement over "Dogville", it's not like Von Trier's writing is really getting any better. After seeing "Dear Wendy" his weaknesses in "Manderlay" in this respect seem all the more obvious. In general I dislike such expositional voice-overs (after getting used to Malick, David Gordon Green, and Wong-Kar Wai it's hard to accept anything less poetic), and Von Trier's are certainly no exception. I'm a big believer in the "show, not tell" philosophy. Also, I thought the story sort of fell apart towards the end. The climatic "twist" and denouement didn't really carry as much weight as they were so obviously supposed to. They felt a bit like the climax of "Oldboy" but without the genius twistedness. I felt sort of like yelling "It's a cookbook!" at one point (a "Twilight Zone" reference, in case you missed that). It just gets more and more heavy-handed until it just becomes ridiculous. As much as I generally enjoy his films (including this one), it's becoming a bit absurd that Von Trier feels like he can make such direct attacks at America without even visiting the place. I mean, look, I'm certainly no patriot, but the attitude he expresses through the film contains so much certainty that he should at least make an attempt to know what he's talking about. Really, what does a guy who lives in Denmark know about race relations in the United States? Do they even have black people in Denmark? With that thought in my mind as I watched the final moments of the film, the pure egotism of Lars Von Trier became apparent.