The Five Obstructions (2003) [Guest Writer] (3.5 Stars)
In the year 2000, Lars von Trier, the 'enfant terrible' of cinema (and chief provocateur at many a Cannes film festival) challenged his Haiti-based fellow-Dane mentor/poet/director Jørgen Leth to remake a 13-minute surreal short film 'The Perfect Human' (1968)... not once, but in five different 'obstructed' variations. The film opens with the two colleagues chatting casually in Lars's dingy living room adorned by a dusty old school CRT TV. "The Perfect Human is a little gem that we're now going to ruin" says Lars with a glint of mephistophelean mischief in his eyes.
The tone of 'The Five Obstructions' (90 minutes of Blu-Ray) is one of dry, deadpan barely-humour and joyful underproduction. Lars instructs the cameraman to continue filming Jørgen while he takes two minutes to think silently. "I want you to make a crap film. I want to banalize you," Lars tells his cinematic forebear with a sadistic yet loving level of control and authority. The two directors share the occasional smile as if operating on a buddy mentality, both acknowledging the tongue-in-cheek nature of the experiment.
Let's start with a brief background: Lars Von Trier was the of pioneer of the avant-garde Dogme 95 movement together with Thomas Vinterberg. They spawned a signed declaration introducing self-imposed restrictions on their film-making. The aim was to preserve purity of intent and artistic integrity (story, acting and theme), and to prevent the churning out of shallow films where technological trickery would steal the limelight. The only Lars von Trier film to follow the movement 'to a tee' ended up being the provocative 'Idiots' (1998), but all of his subsequent works have featured elements of self-restraint in the use of artificial special effects. The timing and motivation of 'The Five Obstructions' are both byproducts of the same school of thought.
Lars proposes five different improvised-on-the-spot obstructions to his flustered colleague, Jørgen:
1) The first film needs to use choppy 12-frame edits, needs to be filmed in Cuba (an improvised rule due to Jørgen smoking a cigar at the time of asking) but needs to answer all of the original film's questions. Cuban dance and flickering imagery follow. The documentary follows the mundane, strange and awkward insights that Jørgen experiences on his travels. Low-key shaky cam musings reveal moments of raw insecurity and self-doubt.
2) Lars wants to push his colleague further with a second film. He instructs Jørgen to travel to the most wretched place on Earth and to play the main character himself. Jørgen chooses the deprived red light district in Mumbai, the most miserable place he remembers visiting. He sets up a transparent screen on a busy street and dressed up in a black-tie suit, performs jumping jacks and feasts on a succulent piece of fish, explaining that such a gourmet meal warrants a glass of Chablis and the finest silverware. Behind the screen, the bemused local folk stare at the opulence while the diner hums : "Why is joy so whimsical? Why is happiness so brief?"
The striking Mumbai film is a triumphant and thought-provoking interpretation of human 'perfection', one would assume? Not so, according to Lars. "I'm very disappointed in you," he says. The film is too good. The locals were not supposed to be shown, only Jørgen himself, to adequately verify whether the wretchedness of the location rubbed onto his friend's demeanour. To resist putting the local sights in the film was supposed to be the real challenge. Lars asks what would be an adequate punishment for misapplying the rules. Jørgen says he'd rather not decide what to do, so Lars says that either Jørgen needs to go back to Mumbai to film against a white wall or he faces the punishment of getting no rules to work with for the next film. Since Jørgen did not want to be left to his own devices, that is precisely what he gets.
3) The next film has French-speaking actors and English narration: it is a dreary film with daydreamy imagery of train tracks, chimneys and loud hotel sex in Brussels. At one point, Jørgen gains inspiration from eavesdropping on rowdy times in the hotel hallway. It is not clear whether the scene is scripted or spontaneous. This is the least entertaining film.
4) The fourth film needs to be a cartoon. "But I hate cartoons," Jørgen complains. "Me too, I f**king hate cartoons," Lars agrees. But he wants Jørgen to squirm. The poet-director explains that although a crap film is what Lars expects, he is too proud to succumb to mediocrity. Poetry matters to him too much. With the help of a Texan animation company, a polished and lyrical animated film is produced. It incorporates animated editions of the other film variations and elicits sentimentality about the human in a subtle way: a man dresses into a jacket multiple times in succession, never comfortable in his perfect skin. Lars is pleased. It is a cartoon. The feedback is short and to the point.
5) For the final film, Lars wants Jørgen to do nothing but to read a narration that Lars has prepared, and to falsely assume director credit for work that he did not do. In the narration, Jørgen expresses his displeasure in Lars forcing him to read words that are not his own. Except that those words are also written by Lars. Are you confused yet? Jørgen is made to declare his depressive traits and vulnerabilities. The real obstruction was the opposite way around:Jørgen inflicted it on Lars by not allowing any film leave a true mark on himself (by hiding his true self). The narration is set on a mellow backdrop of scenes from the documentary itself.
'The Five Obstructions' is a memorable and unique personality study that veers into vacuous musings and airy pretence at times. It uses 'torturous awkwardness' as a tool to explore what art and inspiration mean. It is a fascinating watch for fans of cinema who are not easily distracted by experimental/meta constructions and who have patience to be challenged. The friendship and gentle respect between mentor and apprentice comes through, despite the jokingly sadistic nature of the asks. Films 2 and 4 were the highlights, as well as the clips from the original 1968 classic, dispersed throughout the runtime of the documentary. While watching, you will learn many 'indispensable' facts about life: for example, that caviar should be consumed using a bone spoon rather than a metallic one.
Extra remarks:
The Blu-Ray is part of Curzon Cinema's beautiful new collection (2023) of von Trier films. The box is sturdy, has two 7-disc serpentine jewel cases with lush art, a book of essays (left-leaning Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek reviews Melancholia, making the case for it being a tool for understanding clinical depression) and there are four special art posters for collectors (including the famous Dogme 95 declarations, if you fancy hanging it on your bedroom wall). The film 'Dancer in the Dark' is missing (rumour is that the HD version was of poor image quality), and another omission is The Kingdom (Riget) series.
The disc for 'The Five Obstructions' contains a rare 36-minute experimental black-and-white film by a 22-year old Lars von Trier from 1978: The Orchid Gardener. The film starts with several minutes of ticking emanating from what looks like a birdless cuckoo clock. The disc also contains five minutes of well-spoken musings by film-maker Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary).
Wikipedia reveals that Jørgen Leth lived in Haiti until an earthquake destroyed most of his belongings in 2010. He continued to live there with friends for half of the year until 2013. He got into media trouble for admitting (in graphic detail) his sexual relations with the 17-year old daughter of his Haitian cook in an autobiography called 'The Imperfect Human'. Amid the controversy, Lars (who himself was accused of sexual harrassment by Björk) was supportive of the release of Erotic Man in 2010 and acted as executive producer. I choose not to speculate on specifics of such matters.
Thank you to Mike for inviting guest reviews. I look forward to contributing more of these in good time.
- Nicholas Korpelainen
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