|
| The Kingdom (Riget)
Year: 1995
Directed:
- Morten Arnfred
- Lars von Trier
Actors/Actresses:
- Ernst-Hugo Järegård
- Kirsten Rolffes
- Ghita Nørby
Stanley Kubrick meets David Lynch
When I first saw this foreign gem from director Lars Von Trier ("Breaking The Waves")in Cork, Ireland, the film festival program copy read, "Kubrick meets David Lynch. Already has a cult following."
What "it" is, is "The Kingdom." Perhaps best decribed colloquially as ER on acid, "The Kingdom" is a four-part series set in a hospital in Sweden. Built on an acient burial ground (somewhat a la "The Shining"), as the hospital (named The Kingdom) defies nature with the pursuit of hard-nosed science, it begins to undergo structural damage and visitations by uneasy spirits.
While shifting from the levity of relationships between the doctors, who range from open-minded and good-natured to practitioners of bad medicine, to the greek chorus (represented by two mentally challenged dishwashers who work in the basement), "The Kingdom" delivers palpable chills. Expect ghosts, severed heads, malpractice suits, seances, alien/ghost births and operations involving the switching of organs. It may sound like a bad episode of "The X-Files," circa '98, but the full effect of Von Trier's opus is decidedly classier and worth every second of the four one-hour installments (it originally ran as a television program in Denmark). If you enjoyed the following, you will most certainly take delight in "The Kingdom": The City of Lost Children, La Femme Nikita, Twin Peaks, The Shining.
"E.R." Meets "Twin Peaks"
This 5-hour marathon was originally a mini-series on Danish television, which partly explains the length. It won't take you long to get completely involved in the weird goings-on at the massive Copenhagen hospital complex named "The Kingdom", though, and once you're hooked, you'll want to savor every minute. The primary plot concerns a malingering woman's search within the hospital for the spirit of a young girl, but there's also a phantom ambulance, a secret society (complete with some really bizarre initiation rites!), a Greek Chorus doing the dishes, and at least a half-dozen sub-plots. Although there are some visually disturbing scenes, plus a few steamy ones, the overall tone is best summed up as "quirky humor". The vast impersonality of the hospital is conveyed through washed-out sepia-tinted shots of endless corridors and fly-over shots of the huge complex, but the halls are chock-full of nuts. The Swedish chief neurosurgeon, on the lam from Stockholm thanks to assorted misdeeds there, shouts his frustrations at the "Danish scum" from the rooftops. A resident takes *his* title quite literally, setting up living quarters in the basement, where he recycles pharmaceuticals and keeps tabs on who's up to what. A portly orderly, cowed into submission by his psychosomatic mother, wheels her throughout the building while she searches for the spirit of a young girl she believes was murdered. The loopy head of staff seeks to inspire the workers with a typically management-brain-dead scheme he proudly calls "Operation Morning Wind". If you like the movies of the Coen brothers ("Fargo", or "The Hudsucker Proxy") or if you enjoyed "Twin Peaks", this is *definitely* one to check out. And since this isn't enough in itself, yup, there's a five-hour *sequel*!
Mad Genius!
A fascinating ghost story set in a Danish hospital and created by the mad genius, Lars von Trier. This director is famous for Breaking the Waves and his new film, Dogville. However, The Kingdom is by far my favourite film he has directed so far. [...].
Buy The Kingdom at Amazon.com
Buy posters at Allposters.com
Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone! | |
|
