Lars von Trier first made a big impact on the art-house film circuit with Europa (1991), but it was Breaking the Waves (1996) that really established him as a force to be reckoned with. Everything else was gravy, be it as kingpin of the Dogma 95 movement or working with Bjork and Nicole Kidman on, respectively, Dancer in the Dark (2000) or Dogville (2003). Along with a host of other crazy projects, somehow Lars von Trier found the time to work on The Kingdom. It's closest kindred spirit here in the U.S. would be David Lynch's Twin Peaks, which von Trier admits to admiring (von Trier praises Lynch for Twin Peaks, talking about how excited he was to see Lynch using his "left hand" an allusion to how switching hands alters ones signature significantly). Both shows offered groundbreaking television that steered clear of predictable narrative structures as concocted by committee, and they both jumble together various genres with improvisational glee. They also featured human institutions and professionals (ie: the F.B.I. on one hand, the medical profession on the other) being pitted against supernatural forces. But where Twin Peaks had gloss and polish, The Kingdom comes across like a dry run for the Dogma films that followed and favored a low-tech approach that often, and purposefully, muddied its aesthetics. Von Trier describes The Kingdom as "a ghost story set at the Kingdom Hospital, spiced up a bit with a few soaplike elements. There are doctors and nurses who love each other, and a few minor disturbances on their way in... Some plaster falling off a wall. The hospital is becoming unraveled in some way or another. "
Series One has four episodes: The Unheavenly Host, Thy Kingdrom Come, A Foreign Body, and The Living Dead. We are introduced to a variety of characters, including Stig Helmer (Ernst-Hugo Järegård), a Swedish neurosurgeon who hates working in Denmark and is prone to screaming things like "Danish scum!" (To give full justice to the humor of this, you have to imagine him literally screaming from the rooftops, from a birds-eye-view, as he pounds his fists into the air the kind of thing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert now routinely do when denouncing a nemesis.) He has two Danish colleagues that he fights with, Dr. Jorgen Hook (Søren Pilmark) and hospital administrator Einar Moesgaard (Holger Juul Hansen), and a third that he's romancing, doctor Rigmor (Ghita Norby). We are also introduced to the ghost of a little girl in an elevator shaft, a mysterious ambulance prone to midnight runs with a bloody hand visible in its window, patients being anaesthetized via hypnosis, and much more. The capper is a pregnancy that gets off-the-charts weird and will introduce us to actor Udo Kier making what, even for him, must qualify as his most bizarre entrance. (On the commentary the filmmakers can't help but joke about how "Babies like this are born regularly in Denmark.") After each episode, von Trier comes out in front of a curtained backdrop, in a jacket and bow-tie (calling to mind Edward Van Sloan's introduction to the original Frankenstein) and gives off little bon mots like: "We have composed a bouquet for you of fun, chills and thrills." (He is only seen from the waist up and confesses on the commentary that "I did it in my underpants.")
Where Series One has a bit more fun introducing us to the crazy characters and subplots of The Kingdom, Series Two picks up the pace as it tries to tie everything together with its final four episodes: Mors in Tabula, Birds of Passage, Gargantua, and Pandaemonium. Editor Molly Stensgard notes how "We edited the second half on AVID. A computer. It was very liberating compared to keeping track of all those lengths of 16mm film (in Series One)." Von Trier, commenting on the graininess, says he "experimented a lot. I don't remember all that nonsense. But we squeezed it to the utmost. And afterwards we did all kinds of things to make it look terrible." He includes jump cuts, odd camera angles, and much more - all of this contributing to a fast-paced and liberating stew of ideas that keeps upping the ante on the creative delirium.
Commentary is available for select scenes and von Trier can be counted on to keep it interesting. In one digression he talks about Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski: "I once asked Kieslowski how you direct actors. He said 'I'll tell you. Find a comfy chair, and sit down a long way from the camera and the cast. When they look at you, just smile. Or if you want to go to extremes, just give them a little wave. If they still want you after that, they'll come all the way over. But they seldom do,' he told me. I've tried to do it a bit like that, and you can see that the actors do better without a director." On the subject of ghosts he says: "Ghosts... I believe in them. Or I hope for them, I should say. We did some research in connection with the script and talked to people who know about the occult. We merely had the problem that we'd got too close, in that there seem to be spirits around us all the time. All they want is for somebody to be aware of them. The moment you are, they queue up to talk to you." He adds, later: "It soon turned out that anyone more open-minded had lots of spiritual experiences in connection with shooting and completing the film. Some sound recordists quit the film because of the spirits present."
DVD extras for both Series One and Two include: "Behind the Scenes" footage, selected commentary by Director and Scriptwrtier Lars von Trier and Scriptwriter Niels Vorsel and Editor Molly Stengard, "Misc. TV spots directed by Lars Von Trier" (aka: "Outrageous Newspaper Commercials"), trailer, a "Lars von Trier's Kingdom" documentary, and a Kingdom spin-off music video for The Shiver with bloopers. Overall package is in Danish with subtitles, audio in Dolby Digital, with a 4x3 aspect ratio.
For more information about The Kingdom, Part 1 & 2, visit Koch Lorber. To order The Kingdom, Part 1 & 2, go to TCM Shopping.
by Pablo Kjoseth
