The Five Obstructions (2003)

Once upon a time--1967, to be precise--Danish director Jørgen Leth released The Perfect Human. In The Five Obstructions, fellow countryman Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves) challenges his "hero" to remake the short five times and provides a different set of "obstructions" for each. Because Leth likes cigars, von Trier suggests the first be made in Cuba. For the second, however, he sends Leth to "the worst place on earth"--Bombay's red light district. The obstructions keep coming, interspersed with conversation and clips from the original film, in which actors engage in a variety of activities, like eating and dancing, while the narrator posits oblique questions like "Why is joy so whimsical?" (Von Trier claims to have watched it "at least 20 times.") In the end, the two Danes have whipped up an unclassifiable concoction that plays less like documentary and more like a duel between friendly adversaries. --Kathleen C. Fennessy Amazon.com

Good

Imagine making a stylish sexy film about a Plain Jane. That's the feeling I got watching the 90 minute, 2004 film The Five Obstructions, jointly made and produced by Danish filmmakers Jørgen Leth and Lars Von Trier. Ostensibly, the film is about Trier's challenge to noted documentarian Leth, who seems to have been Trier's mentor, if not idol, in film school, to somehow remake a twelve minute film of his from 1967 in five new ways. That black and white film, The Perfect Human (or Det Perfekte Menneske), is typical of avant-garde films of the day- aseptic, poseur, minimalist, bereft of depth- both in Europe and in America- especially the Andy Warhol Factory. While not a great nor profound film, for it has pretentiously bad pseudo-poetry being read over images of an attractive Danish man and woman posing as perfect humans, the original film does have a certain earnest power, the sort only young artists seem to bring to their work. Flash forward a third of a century, to 2000, and Trier is issuing a challenge to Leth, sort of a less somber Werner Herzog in temperament, to remake the film five different ways, each way, though, with an `obstruction', really only a limitation. Leth accepts the challenge for what it seems to be, seemingly unaware that Trier is actually doing a documentary about Leth and his creative process. each obstruction is designed to show off Leth's presumed genius at getting around the obstruction.
On the downside, the film would have worked better if the original and the subsequent films had been shown in their entirety, and not only in excerpts. Still, it's a synergistic film that is not postmodern, despite its pretensions. Nor is it truly deconstructive. Instead it's self-exploration using the art itself, which is, despite claims, the essence of such a venture. Also, as filmic memoir, it makes the viewer take for granted all its assumptions of the men's relationships. The editing, by Camilla Skousen and Morten Højbjerg, especially in the fifth obstruction, is excellent.
September 19, 2008

A Feature that's a Featurette of Itself

So much dreck is available on video these days. Even entertaining and meaningful movies are out there. But this one is a reach. It's a movie about making a movie - not just any movie, but remaking a

It's also a heck of a lot of fun watching the behind the scenes arguing and the creation of constraints. existentialist/absurdist short about estrangement and disconnection.

The challenge is to remake the movie - and it gets done 5 times - with various constraints (such as no more than 12 frames in a shot after editing). Eventually we see the movie remade as a cartoon. It all works, at each level, talking to us differently, prompting us, and even the director. Five stories that are one story that are life itself - and estrangement made manifest. But yet they remind us each of who we are, how we feel, and how we are the I to every Thou who is a member of homo sapiens sapiens.

And yet ... there's still another story waiting to be told ... what would the "Making of" featurette be but taking this one to a new level?

March 8, 2008

"This is how the Perfect Human makes a film..."

I didn't know who Jorgen Leth was prior to watching this film. I did know however Mr. Lars Von Trier, and against all judgments, I didn't regard him as the great filmmaker some say he is. I actually didn't like the way he made anything he touched look so dirty (cinematically speaking). Now, as biased as this might sound, now I have to say: If you watch one Lars Von Trier film, I hope you watch this one. I guess the reason is contrast: this time, the subject of Von Trier's experiments is a stylist. Danish director and then honorary consul to Haiti, Leth is not only Von Trier's mentor, but also the director of an interesting black and white short film called "The Perfect Human" (1967), which is the excuse for Von Trier's daring and oddly loving obstructions. Leth will have to re-do his film five times, each with an inviolable set of rules imposed by Von Trier. Leth wants to keep his integrity as an artist against Von Trier's bet: that Leth will only take flight when he fails both as an artist and as a human being. This only explains the way the match starts. I hope you watch the movie, see how it ends, and make your own conclussions. I'd only like to say one more thing. Nestor Almendros, the Spanish cinematographer of Terrence Malick's "Days of Heaven", once said the talent of an artist lies in making effects out of defects. Which is another way to say that in the face of obstruction, a true artist will smile and go on. This movie is also about that.
I also gave this film five stars because of the DVD. Although very compressed for HD view, you'll have the chance to watch Leth's original 1967 "The Perfect Human". It doesn't come filled with extras, but it's a clean presentation. October 29, 2007

The Five Obstructions

You couldn't ask for a better match-up than Von Trier, a world-class filmmaker with an infamous sadistic streak, and the depressive Leth, truly a melancholy Dane and a talented artist in his own right. As we follow Leth's efforts to revisit an old film in different formats under various hardships--one obstruction is to film in a place that terrifies him, another to create an animated version of his artsy short--we learn the man's mindset and prodigious store of artistic resources, via his wry voiceover. In the end, however, Von Trier unintentionally reveals as much about himself as his cunning subject, a great twist on a wicked psychological game. July 25, 2007

play in the creative process

Anyone involved in any creative activity would do well to watch this one. Von Trier sets up a series of seemingly insurmountable challenges for his hero Jorgen Leth, and each of these challenges, in turn, is ingeniously subverted by Leth to create one mini-masterpiece after another, much to the astonishment and delight of the two of them. Each production of Mr. Leth is more astonishing than the last, and you begin to wonder how he can top himself. The sense of play is evoked most strongly by the fact that Mr. Leth can follow the letter of the rules laid down by Von Trier, yet each time playfully break those rules in essence.

It is a delightful and touching surprise, then, to become gradually aware of another story behind these exercises, a tender story of generosity. A great film about people who play with light for a living. April 17, 2007

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