Once upon a time--1967, to be precise--Danish director Jørgen Leth released The Perfect Human. In The Five Obstructions, fellow countryman Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves) challenges his "hero" to remake the short five times and provides a different set of "obstructions" for each. Because Leth likes cigars, von Trier suggests the first be made in Cuba. For the second, however, he sends Leth to "the worst place on earth"--Bombay's red light district. The obstructions keep coming, interspersed with conversation and clips from the original film, in which actors engage... in a variety of activities, like eating and dancing, while the narrator posits oblique questions like "Why is joy so whimsical?" (Von Trier claims to have watched it "at least 20 times.") In the end, the two Danes have whipped up an unclassifiable concoction that plays less like documentary and more like a duel between friendly adversaries. --Kathleen C. Fennessy [show more]
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Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 or region free DVD player in order to play his time around the Danish prankster tries to outwit his mentor director Jorgen Leth forcing him to remake his classic 1967 short &39;The Perfect Human&39; five different times with a series of increasingly outlandish guidelines His goal is to break down the abnormally stable Leth teaching him a valuable life lesson in the process In the first film von Trier sends Leth to Cuba and sets his first seemingly insurmountable rule make a film that consists of shots that are no longer than twelve frames at a time Miraculously Leth uses his forced limitations to create a beautiful work which obviously irks von Trier Next up von Trier challenges Leth to return to Bombay - which he calls the &39;most wretched place on Earth&39; - in order to confront some demons from his past Once again the clever mentor rises to the challenge Frustrated and sensing defeat von Trier&39;s next challenge is deceptively simple Leth must remake his film with no limitations whatsoever He travels to Brussels and succeeds once again After a foray into animation von Trier creates the final obstruction a film in which von Trier admits defeat and pays tribute to his mentor &39;The Five Obstructions&39; is a thoughtful entertaining meditation on the filmmaking process
Directed by Lars von Trier and Jorgen Leth, 'The Five Obstructions' is an investigative journey into the phenomenon of 'documentary', based on manifestos written by each director.
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