THE KINGDOM ** out of **** Prepare to wait in this hospital THE KINGDOM will disappoint especially those enthusiastic about Lars von Trier after seeing BREAKING THE WAVES or ZENTROPA. Taken in one sitting, the 280 minutes of this planned thirteen-episode miniseries drags with a story populated so far by too many characters and too little payoff. Once again von Trier, here with the help of co-director Morten Arnfred, has made a film with a strikingly individual look and feel. Shot in 16mm film then transferred to video then back to 35 mm, THE KINGDOM looks, appropriately enough, to have been shot through variously murky (bodily) fluids, with the jerky movements of handheld cameras lending a nervous feel. Originally made for Danish television, THE KINGDOM starts off ominously, with the threat of age-old spirits going spiteful and wreaking havoc upon science and rationality as represented by "The Kingdom," a somewhat more affectionate nickname for an undistinguished concrete monolith of a Danish hospital. Built on grounds once occupied by bleaching ponds, the Kingdom is speedily physically breaking down, and perhaps related are the appearances of a ghost of a young girl heard sobbing in the elevator shafts and that of a driverless ambulance that appears nightly. Nearly five hours into the series and so far the supernatural element of THE KINGDOM has been unrewarding and ineffectual. The opening of THE KINGDOM hint at much grander malevolence than the rather tame story of Mary, a young girl murdered at the hospital in the early part of the century. This absence of malevolence is exacerbated by the frequent forebodings of two Down's Syndrome dishwashers who sense the spirits, but their empty threats as tiresome as those of the boy who cried wolf far too often. After hearing Mary's ghostly sobs in the elevator shaft, forcefully-discharged hypochondriac Sigrid Drusse (Kirsten Rolffes) is convinced she has finally made contact with the spirit world and has herself readmitted into the hospital, and she is assisted by her dull-witted son Bulder (Jens Okking). There is little suspense in Mrs. Drusse's efforts, and she becomes yet another tiresome character. The plodding ghost story isn't helped by a variety of other subplots which at this time do not seem integral: there is a cancer pathologist Bondo (Baard Owe) who goes to great lengths to obtain a rare hepatoma for his research; a secret society of physicians; a medical student (Peter Mygind) who much deservedly gets nightmares after decapitating a corpse in a highly idiotic attempt to impress a nurse. Most promising is the story of the doctor Judith (Birgitte Raabjerg) who was impregnated by a highly-suspect character (Udo Kier). With these subplots writers Arnfred and von Trier may be making their points here about the follies of rational science but these render the insubstantial ghost story transparent by comparison. It is the comedy that sustains THE KINGDOM, not the supernatural. Indeed some of the characters function more for comic effect, such as the daft chief of neurosurgical staff Dr. Moesgaard (Holger Juul Hansen) and his vacant cheerleading efforts. The best performance in THE KINGDOM easily belongs to Ernst-Hugo Järegård as Dr. Stig Helmer, a recent expatriate Swedish neurosurgeon who acts contemptuously against his underlings and all things Danish, including his patients and especially junior resident Jorgen Hook (Søren Pilmark). When Helmer botches a delicate operation on a young girl, he enlists the help of his physician-girlfriend Mona (Laura Christensen), but Hook is determined to exact some level of satisfaction against him. Taken in one sitting these first hours of THE KINGDOM becomes somewhat painful, and although the attention may hold better with breaks in between, I'm not sure one would want to return. I doubt that the attention would have held up better had this been taken in smaller doses - THE KINGDOM does not lend itself well to thought. The directors' ambitions badly needed a surgeon's hand. To reach the same end an hour could have easily been trimmed off - a significant bit of THE KINGDOM is vestigial and disposable. THE KINGDOM (RIGET) Directed by: Lars von Trier and Morten Arnfred Written by: Thomas Gíslason, Lars von Trier and Niels Vørsel Denmark, 1994 Review completed on February 21, 1997. |