September 9, 2003

Hey… I’m writing mid-day today (which is 6pm on my schedule here) because I have a midnight screening of Underworld and I just don’t think I will be awake when it’s time to write.

The second great find of this year’s festival for me (after Touching The Void) is Lars Von Trier and Jorgen Leth’s documentary, The Five Obstructions, which I consider the best film about filmmaking I have seen… well… maybe ever. In many ways, it is the filmic version of Steven Soderbergh’s book, "Getting Away With It", which ironically, I brought with me on this journey to re-read. Both are about personalities on the surface, but speak to the spirit of the process of actually making films, not just deconstructing them afterwards as we critics do or looking at it as a business process, or even as a surface discussion about production.

The set up is this: In 1968, Jorgen Leth made a movie called The Perfect Human. This experimental-style short film is very close to von Trier’s heart. As a result of that, his subsequent relationship with Leth and his own artistic interest in shaking things up, he comes up with the idea of getting Leth to remake The Perfect Human five times, each with a set of obstructions. The obstructions obviously recall the Dogma 95 effort, but they are no Dogma rules. Each film has its own odd set of obstructions with goals stated ahead in meetings between Leth and von Trier before each production begins.

The result is significant on various levels. And I don’t want to tell you how to feel about it. But as someone who is always looking for new ways of explaining the process of creating art – especially to one fellow journalist in particular – this is a spectacular study. The film industry – Hollywood – and those of us who follow it have created a retched mess by forcing the idea that film is a medium that is a one-off, never meant to be reconsidered. Yes, there are remakes aplenty. But the reason for most of them is money and little more.

Film, the most complex of all art forms, can be very much like literature or theater. Like Shakespeare’s plays, many films can be launching points for films that reflect on the original works, surpassing them, falling behind them or simply adding more ideas to the existing ideas. There is nothing wrong with that. Quite the opposite.

But on top of that, there is process. Very few people really understand the process of making a film and the many choices that are made. By creating this odd process in which he sets up rules/obstructions for Leth to deal with, von Trier forces Leth to do what a good artist does all the time… to deal with the situation, to rethink, to make adjustments, and to keep reflecting his own voice, regardless of the circumstances.

I fully expect that The 5 Obstructions will be a key element of every film school curriculum for a long, long time. In fact, I would make it the first thing that every film school student sees at the start of each year of studies, as like all great art, its meaning will change for them every year.

My experience with von Trier this festival has been lovely, very reminiscent of meeting Mike Figgis years ago, finding the genius guy who was sitting there regardless of how I feel about his work. I’ve liked some of Figgis’ work since, but I still admire the art and effort of his work more than some of the outcome. I have never liked a von Trier film deeply. Not even the much revered Breaking The Waves. I find him cruel and misogynistic… even, more so because he has made women heroines in almost all of his works… and they have all suffered for the distinction.

I saw Dogville a few days ago and for me, it is von Trier’s first great film. Why? Because it is, again, for me, his first complete film. It is also a truly universal story, a fact which left me wondering what all the anti-American talk was when it opened at Cannes. I guess if you want to hate America, you can point to the fact that these characters are in the United States. But the story strikes me as a true Everyman saga. From the chalk on slate design of the set to the minimalist props to the cleanly defined set of 15 characters, adding Nicole Kidman’s character and eventually, a few others, the film seems to be a clear map of the boundaries of the societal human heart.

The storyline is relatively simple. It is a tiny town of 15 with a large mountain on one side and a long road into town on the other. The society of 15 has been together for a long time and has the intimacy of a small group, with dyads and triads within the group. Add Nicole Kidman’s Grace to the mixture. She is sex. She is glamour. She is vulnerability. She is mystery. She is opportunity. She is freedom. She is threat.

What happens to this – or any – community when faced with change?

Von Trier says in the notes that he never saw or read Our Town, but the resemblance is more in the design that in the storytelling… the sets without walls. And von Trier and his cinematographer, Anthony Dod Mantle, make this work better than you would imagine it could on film. Again, I am back to an earlier theme about form versus function.

The same thing is true of The 5 Obstructions. Each of the films is made on a different canvas. And yet, the themes change only slightly. The only disappointment in the film is that there is not an opportunity to see all six films from beginning to end. And in the life of this doc, it is appropriate to do it the way they have. But I would love to see every frame of every one of them, since the potential boredom would surely be overwhelmed by the larger lessons to be found in the more subtle nuances.

More later… I hope… just for the record, I couldn’t rouse myself for the 8:30a screening of The Company knowing that a midnight movie would be in the offing. Self-preservation reigns. At least today it does.

E ME: Sorry if I’m not responding, but eventually I will. Keep it coming.