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| The Kingdom From Amazon (US) for $9.98 |
Where, oh where can I find "Riget II"? (Rating: 5.00) Review : "Riget" or "The Kingdom" is probably the most interesting movie I have ever seen. And I don't mean that in that "Ah, yes, you're new clay pot is, uh, interesting" kind of interesting. I mean it in the original form of the word meaning something to the effect of "This ain't like nothing I ever seen!" ER on Acid? Yeah, kinda. Søren Pilmark does kind of look like Anthony Edwards, especially if you add the "on acid." Like another reviewer, I wasn't thrilled with the Dishwasher Chorus duo, though I can see where their framing effect is helpful. Other than that this was dead on terrific. If you are trying to decide if you should buy a foriegn miniseries (as I was) then shrug and tell yourself It's only $ and go for it. I totally enjoyed this movie. But don't be surprised if you find yourself wandering the web looking for the 1997 sequel. And just so you know, the official site for "Riget II" is in Danish. And the translation sites don't really help that much. Which is a real shame, cause the site looks like lots of fun, very reminiscent of the movie. The Kingdom is the most technologically advanced hospital in Denmark. Unfortunately it also has it's creepy past. Won't say anymore about that so as not to ruin the movie! The characters are great, no single lead as it's an ensemble cast. It has multiple storylines and plot twists, it's not all horror in the classic sense of the term. It's an oddball movie, the type not usually done in the US. While some comments have been made comparing it to a David Lynch film, that doesn't quite hit the mark. Lynch wishes he could make a film like this, and it's got entirely its' own brand of weirdness. Sometimes it's quite funny, sometimes creepy, sometimes very serious. The mood and atmosphere can change quickly, and the actors do a great job, especially Ernst-Hugo Järegård as the Dane hating Swede. If you ever get the chance to see this, or Kingdom II, do so. Both films saw a very limited release in the US, and I thought these movies were both so good that I spent a small fortune importing the Japanese DVD's. That right there, should tell you how much I liked this movie! What "it" is, is "The Kingdom." Perhaps best decribed colloquially as ER on acid, "The Kingdom" is a four-part series set in a hospital in Sweden. Built on an acient burial ground (somewhat a la "The Shining"), as the hospital (named The Kingdom) defies nature with the pursuit of hard-nosed science, it begins to undergo structural damage and visitations by uneasy spirits. While shifting from the levity of relationships between the doctors, who range from open-minded and good-natured to practitioners of bad medicine, to the greek chorus (represented by two mentally challenged dishwashers who work in the basement), "The Kingdom" delivers palpable chills. Expect ghosts, severed heads, malpractice suits, seances, alien/ghost births and operations involving the switching of organs. It may sound like a bad episode of "The X-Files," circa '98, but the full effect of Von Trier's opus is decidedly classier and worth every second of the four one-hour installments (it originally ran as a television program in Denmark). If you enjoyed the following, you will most certainly take delight in "The Kingdom": The City of Lost Children, La Femme Nikita, Twin Peaks, The Shining. The miniseries works on all these levels. It's a quirky, incredibly atmospheric study of the hospital centering upon the discovery of the ghost of a girl murdered 75 years previously on the same site haunting the hospital, and it revolves around a giant cast of dozens of memorable characters, all of whom are intensely sympathetic even though they're pretty miserable human beings. The three at the core of the story are a malingerer, the septuagenarian medium Mrs. Drusse, obsessed with discovering the story behind a ghost; a blackmailer, the young and sexy Dr. Hook; and his nemesis in the neurology department, the jaw-droppingly arrogant brain surgeon Dr. Helmer, who had to take this job in Denmark (which he loathes) after being cast out of a job in his native Sweden under suspicion of plagiarism. Although the Gothic aspects to the story are beautifully brought out by the labyrinthine deserted basement hallways of the hospital and Von Trier's gorgeous sepia-tinted cinemtography, like all the best ghost stories the ghosts here serve as metaphors for what's wrong with the state of society in general. The miniseries is an amazingly funny satire on the dilapidated Danish health care system, and the film's funniest moments involve the attempts of the neurology department's manager, the marvelously manipulative and passive-aggressive Professor Moesgaard, to implement a hilariously inane PR campaign called "Operation Morning Air" that involves (among other things) having the neurosurgeons cheerfully sing introductions to one another at staff meetings. The series has often been compared to "Twin Peaks," but it's probably even better. Like the Lynch series it does a marvelous job of conveying atmosphere, but it is deeper and more carefully engineered and imagined. Though there are moments that sag (including the disastrous idea of having Dr. Helmer visit Haiti near the end, which jarringly breaks the miniseries' adherence otherwise to the Aristotelean unities by and large), as a whole it is a genuine masterpiece. It is one of the richest works for television ever made. I hate to bring up a boring old theme, but we in North America rarely come up with works of such subtlety. I have been watching 6 Feet Under and the comparison is stark. In Kingdom, the characters are flawed, interesting, and likeable. In 6 Feet Under, they are flawed, uninteresting, and unlikeable. It is scary to think that an American re-make of this is in the works. But, you never know...remember Twin Peaks (almost 20 years ago now!)? |
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