Product Description

About a filmmaker not only revisiting but also recreating (not in a conventional sense) one of his first films the perfect human / det perfekte menneske (1967) Studio: E1 Entertainment Release Date: 10/05/2004 Run time: 90 minutes Rating: Nr

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56798 in DVD
• Brand: Koch International
• Released on: 2004-10-05
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Enhanced, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: Danish, English, French, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
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

From The New Yorker
The Danish director Lars von Trier takes a break from messing with America to provoke his cinematic mentor Jorgen Leth. This film documents their collegial yet fractious collaboration, as von Trier compels Leth to reshoot his 1967 avant-garde short, "The Perfect Human," under certain constraints. The first "obstruction" is that no shot can last longer than twelve frames, and the result is similar to watching a film underneath a flashing strobe. It's also weirdly beautiful. Von Trier is as prickly and arrogant as you might expect, but you begin to wonder if his attitude is part of a plan to make Leth look good in contrast. Leth himself is a handsome depressive who lives in self-seclusion in Haiti, and it slowly emerges that this project is von Trier's attempt to prod Leth out of artistic stasis. At times, the casual, high-concept banter can be wearying, but what makes the proceedings more than an airy, intellectual stunt is the final filmed obstruction. Written by von Trier, it inverts and upends the traditional idea of a teacher inspiring his student, and its effect upon the rest of the film is revelatory. In English, Danish, French, and Spanish. -Michael Agger
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker