The 5 Obstructions
What an odd little movie. The grand old man of Danish cinema, Jørgen Leth, made a 13-minute experimental film called “The Perfect Human” in 1967. Leth’s student and current bad boy of Danish cinema, Lars von Trier, who professes to love Leth and his film, challenges the master to re-make his film 5 times, each time under conditions, or “obstructions,” dictated by Lars. First obstruction: no sets, no shot longer than 12 frames, and you have to make it in Cuba. Sounds awful. Jørgen ponders it, we get to see him working it out, and eventually delivers his film to Lars. It is astonishingly good. Lars is pissed. Two things eventually become clear. One, Lars wants to somehow, for some reason of his own, make Jørgen produce a bad film. Two, Lars is, not to put too fine a point to it, an asshole. Lars keeps throwing up obstructions, justifying it with increasingly tortured explanations on the order of “I want you to loosen up, you’re too controlled.” Jørgen keeps bringing back wonderful little films. For the fourth obstruction Lars demands that it be a cartoon, which they both profess to hate. Jørgen finds a brilliant animator in Austin, and they turn in a really fantastic bit. At last Lars basically gives up for the fifth one. It’s all a bit like a showdown on a dusty western street, the young punk calling out the old gunslinger. The difference in character and talent is painfully obvious.
There are two problems with the film. We see parts of “The Perfect Human,” but we don’t see it in its entirety. Luckily, the DVD includes the whole film. I would advise you to watch it first. It can still be enjoyed the other way (we enjoyed it a lot), but we wished we’d seen the short first. Second, none of the 5 new films are shown in their entirety. I would really like to see them.
This is not a film for everybody, but one good measure of a good film is how long it stays with you and what it does to you. By that measure, this one does the trick; Lee and I discussed it compulsively for a long time afterward. I’ve become a big fan of Jørgen Leth, though I’ve never seen one of his films. Sadly, I’m not a fan of Lars von Trier, director of the aggressively awful Dogville. On the other hand, I have to give him credit for releasing a film that makes him look like a pretentious idiot.