The Five Obstructions
The Five Obstructions
| 26 May 2004 (USA)
The Five Obstructions Trailers

Lars von Trier challenges his mentor, filmmaker Jørgen Leth, to remake Leth’s 1967 short film The Perfect Human five times, each with a different set of bizarre and challenging rules.

Reviews
Rijndri Load of rubbish!!
Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one
ThurstonHunger I had never seen nor heard of Jorgen Leth's short film, "The Perfect Man"Here it is online if you care to (re-)watchhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qFS5IEctis&feature=relatedFor a 10 minute film, it has some remarkably memorable moments, the man dancing, the man muttering while eating. That film is the seed for this one. Lo and behold the DVD revolution has come completely round, and the making of a film becomes the movie itself. While I can understand some of the detractors here, I found the film fascinating, and could not turn it off. There is something inherently pleasing to me, to have some one map out a series of rules and then have another person exercise some creativity within those rules, or in this case obstructions. But as surely as obstructions become creativity this film flips back upon itself.My obstruction as a reviewer then is to describe this as a summer blockbuster:This is a film about Batman and the Joker playing ping-pong, but while the game is on, the Joker is busy destroying Gotham City on the sly. However, in the end, the Joker finds that Batman is not really Batman, but Alfred the Butler in disguise (and not portrayed by Jorgen Leth), ultimately Batman has preserved Gotham.Yes I know that fails, but if you enjoy books about authors writing books, you may enjoy this film as I did.
Sean Lamberger Modern art house director Lars von Trier spends a few months torturing his idol, the experimental documentarian Jørgen Leth, in a variety of cruel and unusual ways. As the taskmaster of a twisted private game, von Trier compels Leth to painstakingly recreate his 1967 surrealist short, The Perfect Human, on five different occasions with a gauntlet of handicaps and restrictions. A shoot might require that he employ no more than twelve frames between cuts or travel across the globe, and Leth is merrily game for it all. Ultimately, the goal is to strip the film down to the core and unravel its mysteries - many of which were seemingly lost to the director himself - and it does successfully dip a few toes into those waters. But as Leth gets more films under his belt, the obstructions become more passive, quizzical and vague. By the time we arrive at the delivery of his final film, a light, enjoyable concept has become too heady and analytical for its own good, and neither man is smiling with the kind of vigor they were at the outset.
Cosmoeticadotcom Imagine making a stylish sexy film about a Plain Jane. That's the feeling I got watching the 90 minute, 2004 film The Five Obstructions, jointly made and produced by Danish filmmakers Jørgen Leth and Lars Von Trier. Ostensibly, the film is about Trier's challenge to noted documentarian Leth, who seems to have been Trier's mentor, if not idol, in film school, to somehow remake a twelve minute film of his from 1967 in five new ways. That black and white film, The Perfect Human (or Det Perfekte Menneske), is typical of avant-garde films of the day- aseptic, poseur, minimalist, bereft of depth- both in Europe and in America- especially the Andy Warhol Factory. While not a great nor profound film, for it has pretentiously bad pseudo-poetry being read over images of an attractive Danish man and woman posing as perfect humans, the original film does have a certain earnest power, the sort only young artists seem to bring to their work. Flash forward a third of a century, to 2000, and Trier is issuing a challenge to Leth, sort of a less somber Werner Herzog in temperament, to remake the film five different ways, each way, though, with an 'obstruction', really only a limitation. Leth accepts the challenge for what it seems to be, seemingly unaware that Trier is actually doing a documentary about Leth and his creative process. each obstruction is designed to show off Leth's presumed genius at getting around the obstruction.On the downside, the film would have worked better if the original and the subsequent films had been shown in their entirety, and not only in excerpts. Still, it's a synergistic film that is not postmodern, despite its pretensions. Nor is it truly deconstructive. Instead it's self-exploration using the art itself, which is, despite claims, the essence of such a venture. Also, as filmic memoir, it makes the viewer take for granted all its assumptions of the men's relationships. The editing, by Camilla Skousen and Morten Højbjerg, especially in the fifth obstruction, is excellent.
portasio "the perfect human" is the quintessential meta-movie. the ultimate under-over-statement in cinema history. a clean, coherent, 60's styled "un chien andalou". it yields very little to the untrained eye.this is "the perfect human" all over again. with a "meta" twist, so this would make "de fem benspaend" a meta-meta-meta movie... or maybe i didn't count the layers right. i won't really bother.if you think you know anything about cinema, psychology or weltanschauung, you must see this one. over and over again.btw... all those van trier haters out there might have a better understanding of the real nature of his movies after watching this.if you're iq is over 130, don't miss it.
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