Lars von Triers, the infuriating Danish enfant terrible of film, has long been obsessed with 1967s THE PERFECT HUMAN, an experimental film from Jorgen Leth. Because von Triers is now in a position to act on his obsessions, and because he is, as you might have noticed from BREAKING THE WAVES and DOGVILLE, a perverse filmmaker, he came up with the idea of inviting Leth to remake his film five times, with five different sets of obstructions, hence the title of the film. The result is a startling revelation about how plastic, in the good sense, that cinema can be as art, as play, and as punishment. Which cause leads to which effect is as unexpected as the results that ensue.
The scenes of von Triers and Leth discussing the projects before and after are shot cinema verité, loose framing and a moving camera capturing the kinetic give and take as vpn Triers sets impossible rules and Leth responds more or less calmly. Later, lost in a maze of hotel corridors in Brussels or meeting actors in Cuba, he is more candid about what hes gotten himself into. This is standard stuff in any of the behind-the-scenes making of documentaries produced in conjunction with most movies these days with an eye to the DVD extra. What sets this apart is the interplay of von Triers and Leth as the latter discovers that his obstructions have turned into enhancements, Leth smiling contentedly, von Triers a delicious blend of disappointment and grudging admiration at how Leth succeeded. The question quickly becomes who is tormenting whom in this battle of cinematic wits?
We see each of the films, including the original, in bits and pieces, setting context and setting up the results that are sometimes identical, but never the same. The original is playfully ironic, a man in a tuxedo, a woman in a dress filmed separately in front of a white screen. He is seen dancing, shaving, eating a meal. She is seen putting on lipstick, settling down on a bed. The camera investigates their ears, their eyes. The narration tells us they are perfect and ponders why they do what they do. The man muses on a vision hes had of his wrist in flames and a pinprick of light on his heart. They are nothing more than idle thoughts that pass the time as a shaving razor glides over his neck and chin.
With each subsequent obstruction, the tone changes radically. The first, filmed in Cuba with no sets and no cut longer that 12 frames (one second of screen time is 32), becomes a dyspepsic jumble that challenges first world assumptions and fragments images such that they take on an unexpected power with their brief exposure. For the second, von Triers sends Leth to a slum in Bombay, which the elder filmmaker describes as a place of horror. The obstruction is to not show it and to have Leth himself star. Leth fudges, using a transparent screen with lean and ghostly faces crowded behind it, watching him as he nonchalantly consumes a meal served on silver. The result is a damning indictment of the first worlds insouciance about the third. The next, filmed in Brussels with the obstruction of no obstructions at all, becomes a study of existential angst. The fourth, a cartoon, a format that both von Triers and Leth despise, becomes the inner landscape of a mind contemplating itself. The fifth forbids Leth from doing anything but read the narration written for him by von Triers and allow his name to be put on the result as the director.
All the dissection of filmmaking itself that has gone before becomes a prelude for this segment, in which von Triers dissects Leth himself, peeling away the layers of his creative soul and transmuting it into a monologue illustrated with scenes of Leth himself, directing, talking, or just being. The level of trust on both sides of this final project is simultaneously raw and tender, and almost too intimate to bear for an outside observer.
THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS is a paean to the endless possibilities of filmmaking, sure, but its also a glimpse of what makes these two filmmakers tick. It cant have all the answers about that, these gentlemen demonstrate over and over again how canny they are both behind and in front of the camera, but it makes for an endlessly fascinating experience.
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