At first, the new film The Five Obstructions seems like a real novelty.

Basically a documentary, the film depicts what happens when Lars von Trier convinces one of his cinematic heroes, Jorgen Leth, to remake a short film, The Perfect Human, which Leth made in the late 1960s, and which von Trier has claimed to have seen more than twenty times. Leth is to remake it five times, each time with new obstacles created by von Trier, whose goal is to get Leth to go "from the perfect to the human," from cold, witty analysis to a more emotional type of filmmaking. It is sort of odd that von Trier feels the need, as he did when he created Dogme 95, to create a cold, calculated series of limitations to bring out emotional cinematic truth, but I digress.

What sounds like a unique cinematic experience plays more like a reality show for cinephiles, with von Trier as a fascistic fanboy moderator. Before each shoot, von Trier talks to Leth for a time, about what Leth doesn't like and what makes him uncomfortable as a filmmaker, and then von Trier immediately fires off a new set of directives, forcing Leth to deal with these multiple Achilles heels all at once. The majority of the film, then, is watching Leth squirm under the restrictions laid on top of him and watching him complain to the documentary crew about von Trier's silly romanticism and near-hateful assignments, as though he was talking to The Real World's confession-cam. The behind-the-scenes footage is also frustratingly elliptical, with scant revelations about the filmmaking process. One assumes this is because too much information would detract from the main events, which are, of course, the five new short films.

The shorts are what raise this from the level of reality television to something more. For all of the gimmickry, the short films are each eloquent little achievements which have a far better shot at standing the test of time than, say, any of the musical merchandising offshoots related to American Idol.

One could lazily call it a case of ends justifying means, if it were not for that pesky von Trier character buzzing around in the periphery. His goal, as he explicitly states, is not to push Leth to be a more creative filmmaker; he wants Leth to fail. In his mind, von Trier equates failure with the essence of humanity, and he hopes that at some point Leth will come back from one of the shoots with an ungodly piece of cinematic trash. It is sort of gratifying that Leth continually outwits the sadist, with a series of sometimes breathtakingly beautiful pieces, but then the usefulness of this non-journey to a viewing audience comes into question. This questionable merit is further complicated by von Trier's concluding decision to seize the project from Leth and force him, Big Brother-style, to read a script saying that the prolonged cinema-therapy session has done good for both men involved.

The Five Obstructions is not a great film, but it is an entertaining film with a novel premise and featuring a series of astonishing moments interspersed. If anything, it does pique one's interest to learn more about this inventive Leth fellow, whose films are pretty much unknown in the States. Also, and to an equal extent, it provides helpful evidence for those looking to prove that Lars von Trier is out of his mind.

                                                                © THE FILM JOURNAL 2004