Controversial Danish director Lars von Trier has announced his retirement from feature films. After an unsettling career in film making, with work causing an outcry along with deeply questionable remarks made at film festivals, is it any wonder that people don’t know what to expect from him?
After seeing Twin Peaks in the early 90s, von Trier vowed to create a show inspired by it. First seen in 1994, The Kingdom – Riget in Danish – has created a lasting impact on cult media and television in general. A second season, emerging three years later, left viewers with a cliffhanger. Twenty-five years since that last series (like Twin Peaks – I do wonder if he had planned that) MUBI present a new, five-episode curtain closer from Lars von Trier, The Kingdom: Exodus.
The show is set in a Copenhagen hospital, built upon centuries-old bleaching ponds. To say the hospital is haunted remains a great understatement, and the show itself is the middle ground between the spiritual and scientific worlds. With the passing of time comes compromises: several previous Kingdom actors have gone to the other realm, including Ernst-Hugo Järegård as Doctor Stig Helmer, the delicious Swedish villain. His son, Stig Jr., takes the baton for horribleness – and the hatred for Denmark – with a fabulous turn from Mikael Persbrandt. Bodil Jørgensen, as Karen, replaces the late Kirsten Rolffes who played Mrs. Druse both mediums who enable the connection between real life and spiritual realm. Jørgensen commands the screen when upon it, and Karen remains the main figure to root for in the quest for closure.
What held up from this new season was the absurd nature we expect from its director. PC culture, consent, and hospital practices and ethics are tackled, while the amount of ribbing Denmark gets from Stig Jr., the Swede, is forever funny (and comparable to the England-Wales rivalry). The Kingdom, though a sideways look at television, is also a meta one – references to the previous two series abound, with the hospital giving tours and characters declaring what they thought of the original run. It also doesn’t take much to make a hospital spooky, there are some bizarre and disturbing moments, though none rival that of the season one finale.
Willem Defoe has a surprise turn, as an evil entity who now appears to have a hold on the hospital, and needs to do little to make an intimidating impact; he’s a welcome addition here. I’ve less praise for Alexander Skarsgård, who plays a lawyer in his toilet office (yes, you read that right): Skarsgård has always had a feeling of nepotism about him, most evident here as his actor father, Stellan, played a similar role in the second season. Udo Keir takes a less messed-up role of the brother he played in the first run, and his brief time here feels like the figurehead for things to get back to normal at the hospital amidst corruption, masonic lodges, possession and beheadings.
There is a vibe of the Dogme 95 directorial movement – the belief of making a purer cinema with little use of effects in post – which von Trier cofounded. His Melancholia, from 2011, is evoked with the use of Wagner’s Tristan overture, and The Seventh Seal pops up as a reference towards the end: dancing atop the hospital, and even the line “I am death”. Lars appears in person for each of The Kingdom’s end credits, usually offering smart sounding words: this time, he hides behind a curtain and declares, “Everything is stolen”. His own cameo in the show, at the very end, is characteristically ludicrous to boot. One highlight which stays with me, though, is a cheeky nod to Tarkovsky’s Solaris, featuring the Bach piece Lars also used in 2013’s Nymphomaniac. Stig Jr says it best: “More Danish humour”.
On Christmas Day this year, the final streamed episode of Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom: Exodus will tie in lovingly with the festive period. Just don’t expect it to be a cheery affair by any standard.
The Kingdom: Exodus arrives on MUBI 27 Nov. The original seasons are available to watch now.
words JAMES ELLIS
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