Manifesto (2015) on Netflix

Plot summary

Cate Blanchett performs manifestos as a series of striking monologues.

Manifesto draws on the writings of Futurists, Dadaists, Fluxus artists, Suprematists, Situtationists, Dogma 95 and other artist groups, and the musings of individual artists, architects, dancers and filmmakers, editing and reassembling them as a collage of artists' manifestos, ultimately questioning the role of the artist in society today. Performing these 'new manifestos' while inhabiting thirteen different personas - among them a school teacher, a puppeteer, a newsreader, a factory worker and a homeless man - Cate Blanchett imbues new dramatic life into these famous words in unexpected contexts.

—AnonymousB

Through an intricate collage of art manifestos ranging from Situationism to Stridentism, and from Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier's Dogme 95 to the avant-garde Dada, the chameleonic Cate Blanchett delivers each manifesto embodying a distinct persona. The linear theoretical meditation on the artistic ideas is interpreted by the performer's intricate alter egos by means of radical transformations: she is a raving homeless man, a fifth-grade teacher, a despotic Russian choreographer, a confident anchorwoman. Twelve manifestos, thirteen archetypal characters, and in between, the primal need to comprehend the individual and the world that surrounds us.