The Cellar - Cannes and America

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Quote:

CANNES, France (Reuters) - The dark underside of the United States has taken center stage in several films at Cannes this year, capped on Monday with a scathing attack of past and present racism in America by Danish director Lars von Trier.

"Manderlay," about a fictional Alabama plantation where people are living in 1933 as if slavery were never abolished, staggered festival-goers with a disturbing portrayal of America that fails, even today, to come to terms with its racist past.

There are a number of other films that examine dark and depressing aspects of the United States and "American Dream" losers, filled with violence, drugs and alcohol abuse. They were made by directors from the United States, Canada and Europe.

The films, screening at the world's most important festival here, also feed off a lingering anti-American sentiment prevailing in Europe over the
Iraq war. Michael Moore won the festival's top award last year for his film "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Von Trier, whose fear of flying has prevented him from visiting the United States, won thunderous cheers at the world premiere and a news conference, where he said he enjoyed bashing America on screen because it invades his life even in Denmark.

"We are all under the influence -- and it's a very bad influence -- from America," said the 49-year-old Dane. "In my country everything has to do with America. America is kind of sitting on the world.

"America has to do with 60 percent of my brain and all things I experience in my life, and I'm not happy about that," von Trier said. I'd say 60 percent of my life is American so I am in fact an 'American' too. But I can't go there and vote or change anything there. That is why I make films about America."

"Manderlay," which stars
Danny Glover,
Willem Dafoe and Bryce Dallas Howard in a bare theatrical setting, is only the latest film by von Trier to probe America's darkest corners -- all with anything but happy endings.

VON TRIER WAITING FOR ANTI-DANISH FILM

Other dark American films include U.S. director Gus van Sant's "Last Days" about rocker Kurt Cobain's drug-induced demise and suicide while parasite friends ignored his distress, and Canadian Atom Egoyan's "Where the Truth Lies" with
Kevin Bacon as an over-sexed, over-drugged celebrity.

"The world is a very dark and sinister place," van Sant told Reuters. He agreed those films appeal to European audiences.

Egoyan said the United States is a rich target for directors but his film, despite its dark story, was not attacking America.

"The film isn't trying to condemn a culture," he said, but he added: "That culture is based on a tremendous sense of power of the media. It's a culture that looks at itself all the time."

European filmmakers have long had an awkward relationship with the United States. Hollywood films dominate markets with between 60 and 80 percent of each national box office. While loudly criticising the style and substance of big Hollywood films, many have quietly adopted some of those very techniques.

At Cannes there are other films probing America's underbelly: "A History of Violence" is a portrayal of redneck American bloodletting, "Sin City" with Bruce Willis needs no further explanation, and "Don't Come Knocking" is about an over-the-hill Western hero's steep fall with alcohol and drugs.

Canadian David Cronenberg, who directed "A History of Violence," said he could have set his film anywhere but chose a small Midwestern town because it fitted the story best.

"As any artist will tell you, to be universal you have to be specific," Cronenberg said. "It's very deliberately put in an American setting to show a universal problem."

There are also films not in competition that examine the dark side of the United States.

"The Power of Nightmares" is a powerful British documentary about U.S. President George W.. Bush's use of fear and illusions to rally support for his war on terror.

But von Trier, whose equally bleak America story "Dogville" starring Nicole Kidman was also at Cannes in 2003, said he would be happy to watch a film slamming his home country of Denmark.

I say keep him the fuck home in Denmark then, Mr. "Afraid to Fly".