The Five Obstructions

REVIEW
There’s certainly never been another film quite like The Five Obstructions, a witty documentary and film-within-a-film that also functions as a portrait of friendship and a survey of the creative process in full force. Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark) offers a tantalizing challenge to his mentor, documentary filmmaker Jørgen Leth: Leth is to remake his classic 1967 13-minute film "The Perfect Human" under a series of conditions dictated by von Trier. He is to remake it not just once, but five times, and the production of each film will be made under a restriction, or challenge, imposed by Von Trier himself. The good-natured, enterprising Leth takes the bait, and the race is on. The initial “condition” imposed is that the first remake must be shot in Cuba with no sets, using only 12 frames per scene (half a second of screen time!). As Leth artfully and dutifully meets each challenge (we will refrain from revealing any more of von Trier’s cunning, often arbitrary and devious rules), he returns with a completed film in hand -- frustrating and impressing von Trier, the self-named “Obstructer.” Interspersed between the results of these new film projects are conversations between the two filmmakers, clips from the original incarnation of The Perfect Human and footage from the making of the remakes (which takes Leth from Cuba to India). The playful relationship between the two artists is a delight to watch, and the viewer reflects in amazement as a film –- essentially the same film -– is rethought and remade. The results are a triumph of creativity -- for Leth and von Trier.