by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: Discs: 7, The Film: 4/5, The Extras: 3.5/5, Overall: 7.5/10
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Søren Pilmark, Birgitte Raaberg, Peter Mygind, Kirsten Rolffes, Holger Juul Hansen, Udo Kier
Intro:
… will have you alternately squirming with discomfort and chortling with disbelief.
The Films:
Most readers of this august organ are likely familiar with Lars von Trier. The controversial Danish director is responsible for some of the most divisive works of cinema, including the likes of Dancer in the Dark (2000), Antichrist (2009), Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 & 2 (2013) and The House That Jack Built (2018). What some of you might not know is that Lars, early on in his career, also tried his hand at the televisual arts, knocking out three seasons of the absurdist supernatural drama The Kingdom between 1994 and 2022. But what exactly is The Kingdom and does it deserve the fancy pants boutique treatment?
The Kingdom tells the story of the Rigshospitalet, a huge teaching hospital in Copenhagen. The grim, brutalist structure hides a lot of secrets, both mundane and supernatural, and the show interweaves the lives of patients and doctors with a meta narrative involving ghosts, phantom ambulances, demonic babies, murder, voodoo, telekinesis, exorcisms and ancient curses.
That the subject matter is dark and disturbing will hardly be a surprise to anyone familiar with ol’ mate Lars’ work. What might surprise you, however, is how bloody funny The Kingdom is at times. Playing out like the unholy fusion of Twin Peaks and ER, the show has a certain puckish sense of whimsy where the surreal antics are often delivered with a kind of droll wit that delights far more than it affronts. That’s not to say that stuff doesn’t get dark, mind you, but the goal here isn’t to leave the audience member rocking back and forth, muttering to themselves, in the manner many audience members found themselves after Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves or Antichrist.
Stylistically, the show is really interesting. Originally shot on 16mm and upscaled for modern viewing, The Kingdom has a grainy, sepia-toned aesthetic that’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Von Trier’s roaming camera captures the chaos of hospital life really well, and there’s rarely a frame of this thing that isn’t striking. The cast, also, do excellent work with the wonderfully awful Swedish neurosurgeon Stig Helmer (Ernst-Hugo Järegård) delivering one of the more hilariously hatable villains in recent memory. Søren Pilmark is also terrific as the jaded everyman Jørgen ‘Hook’ Krogshøj and Udo Kier pops in for a role that’s weird even by the high standard of lunacy set by the beloved cult actor.
On the downside, the pacing is all over the shop. The episodes range between 58-78 minutes long and it feels like many of them would have benefited from judicious editing, or even increasing the episode count from 13 and making them a wee bit shorter. It’s difficult to maintain the tension when your single episode is the same length as a low budget horror movie! Also, the third season takes place 25 years (!) after the second which means that, tragically, many of the actors have died in the interim, including the great Ernst-Hugo Järegård and the wonderful Kirsten Rolffes (who played Sigrid Drusse). Von Trier has to pull some hacky nonsense to write himself out of that quandary (why look, it’s Helmer’s son now!), which is certainly understandable, but it might grate on audiences unprepared for it.
Imperfect, oddly paced and rough around the edges, The Kingdom is nonetheless a completely unique work of art. Hell, Lars von Trier himself comes out in the end credits of each episode – as himself – to natter about what you’ve just watched, the absolute madman. It’s a singular experience and we know that because the Americans tried to remake the bloody thing in 2004 with Kingdom Hospital, even getting Stephen King on board to help develop it. The result was… not all that good, honestly, which confirms the original’s untouchable status.
The big 4K restoration of the show manages to both look pretty and strategically ugly, giving the viewer an unsettling but high fidelity experience that will have you alternately squirming with discomfort and chortling with disbelief.
The Extras:
A solid if not exhaustive selection of special features here. There’s audio commentary on selected scenes by Lars von Trier, co-writer Niels Vørsel and co-editor Molly Stensgaard which is a fine way of experiencing a more disciplined set of aural extras.
There’s a collection of Outrageous Newspaper Commercials that von Trier directed, many of them very toey and/or funny. There’s an extensive, legacy Behind the Scenes: ‘The Kingdom’ featurette, which showcases older interviews with cast and crew and a lengthy Lars von Trier’s Kingdom featurette, which focuses more on the eccentric Dane.
There’s also the film clip for the show’s deadset banger of a theme tune, The Shiver, and a blooper reel for the same.
Best in show, however, is a brand spanking new video essay, From the Bleaching Ponds by film writer and historian Michael Brooke. It’s just a rock solid deep dive into the themes and context of The Kingdom and manages to be informative and bloody entertaining.
The whole package comes in a very attractive (aka creepy-looking) hardbox and is bundled with a hardcover booklet with a written essay by Chris Haskell and some flash pictures.
It’s lovely to see this obscure cult gem get the boutique treatment and will be a treat for fans and/or random weirdos.
The Verdict:
In no universe is Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom for everyone. This is niche, cult insanity from a director who is known to be utterly berko. However, those who are attuned to his grim but intermittently hilarious rhythms will find much to love in this singular televisual experience.
Bolstered by a decent swag of extras and packaged to perfection, Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom Trilogy (1994 – 2022) represents the perfect way to experience The Kingdom for the first time or the tenth. Just watch out for Udo Kier. Bloke’s liable to pop out of anything!
