Five Obstructions

In this documentary, influential movie director Jorgen Leth submits himself to a bizarre sort of therapy where he is forced to remake his 1967 short The Perfect Human, Many times. In each remake a set of obstructions are put into place by film maker and friend, Lars von Trier. In each instance, Lars creates a set of guidelines that are intended to trip Jorgen up, but in each instance Jorgen finds a way to use these obstructions to create a better film.

What is the purpose of this therapy? To me, this is unclear. Perhaps it is not a form of therapy at all, but rather just an interesting premise for another documentary (though I believe Lars calls it therapy in the film). Throughout the film, lars says that he is trying to get Jorgen to make crap. I think perhaps he wanted jorgen to let go of his urge to make everything perfect, and in doing so he may discover something about himself.

Regardless, Lars' attempts fail, and Jorgen uses every obstacle thrown at him to create a better, more dynamic film. The obstacles ranged from being required to film in the most miserable place on earth (as determined by Jorgen himself) to having each edit be no longer than 12 frames, to having no restrictions at all (an obstruction that, for some reason, Jorgen found most challenging).

The final challenge was for Jorgen to read a script that Lars had written, and take directoral credit for a film Lars had directed. In the film Jorgen is speaking to lars, telling him that he (Jorgen) was the perfect human, that Lars knew it all along, and each attempt to figure him out, or to trip him up had failed, because he was, after all, the perfect human. The film is a monolouge with clips of jorgen playing whilst he speaks, and serves as a confusing conclusion to an already somewhat perplexing film.

The film, in its entirety, was quite good. It was interesting to see how Jorgen would handle each challenge, and then to see the films he created in the end. If though, there was some sort of meaning, or point to the movie (not that there needs to be, but with the way it was created, especially the last film, leads me to believe that there was suposed to be), it still eludes me.