Synopsis
Grace, her father and her father's armed men have left the devastation of Dogville behind them and drive south across the USA searching for greener pastures. Grace and her father have quickly resumed the hostilities that led her to run away into the mountains in the first place. She and her old man lock horns at every bend in the road ...The cortege is stopped for a roadside picnic when Grace makes a gruesome discovery: the body of a black man is hanging from a tree near a stone marker identifying the property as "Manderlay". Her father insists that they leave local matters to the locals but when a desperate young woman begs the gangsters for help, Grace goes with her and the others have no choice but to follow.
Grace can hardly believe the scene appearing before her eyes in the yard at Manderlay. A young black man is tied between two fence posts, bound for a whipping by a white overseer as the other horrified labourers gather around. It's 1933, but Manderlay looks for all the world like an old-time plantation. It's workers are nothing but slaves, driven by an elderly mistress known as Mam who rules by the book. The book is called "Mam's Law" and it is both a code of conduct and a dehumanised chronicle purporting to detail the appearance and behaviour of generations of slaves at Manderlay. Grace's father's henchmen soon take control of the situation and relieve Mam of her shotgun while Grace removes the whip from the slavedriver's grasp.
Before long, Mam is dead of a stroke and having liberated the slaves, Grace and her party prepare to leave Manderlay. But an elderly ex-slave, Wilhelm, insists that Grace stay to receive their thanks and she quickly realises that she can't just leave these poor people to fend for themselves. Grace believes that she has a duty to make it up to the slaves for injustices they have suffered at the hands of her kind and she decides that she will remain at Manderlay until she has seen them through their first harvest. Her father grudgingly leaves her with four henchmen and a lawyer, warning Grace that he won't be there to pick up the pieces when her plans for the redemption of Manderlay fall apart.
The effort to win the trust of the former slaves is an arduous one for Grace but gradually, through patience and instruction, she makes herself understood. After a few setbacks, the crop is planted and the roofs of the dilapidated cabins are repaired. Reduced to the status of their former slaves, Mam's heirs are clearly not happy with the situation but among the black residents, only handsome Timothy, the slave Grace rescued from the foreman's whip, remains completely impervious to her improving enthusiasm. In her frustration, Grace succumbs to overwhelming erotic fantasies featuring this proud scion of African nobility.
But nature, too, has plans for Manderlay. The cotton crop is threatened by a dust storm and its residents are threatened by famine. The gangsters grow bored and the former slaves are slow to learn the lessons of democracy an an empty stomach. Determined not to give in and certain only of her moral obligation to improve and instruct, Grace feels control of Manderlay slipping from her grasp and turns to "Mam's Law", looking for answers ...
