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Inbetween his more carefully honed and serious (dare I say
"legitimate") feature projects, for the past few years
Lars von Trier has been keeping in practice and paychecks by
helming the wildly popular Scandinavian television series
"Riget", the first two seasons of which (a third began
shooting this summer) have been released theatrically in the
States under the titles "The Kingdom" and "The
Kingdom II", respectively. Caught the second installment
last night and, while it's not quite as engaging or consistent as
the first, it's a goofy, guilty-pleasure morsel nonetheless.
"Morsel" may not be quite the right word for an
unfinished project containing a labyrinth of interchanging
narrative threads and no less than the battle between Heaven and
Hell totalling 11 hours thus far, but its ridiculous fuck-all
take on American hospital-soapopera conventions and over-the-top
pontifications on the machinations of GOOD and EVIL make it just
that...an oversized, sticky, occasionally cloying confection that
just might make you choke. "II" picks up the action
apparently just days after the first finished with a full-grown
Udo Kier blasting out of an unfortunate mother's birth canal
(and, yes, one absolutely must have a working knowledge of the
first to remotely comprehend the second), and von Trier, perhaps
unwisely, accentuates the silliness and absurdity at the expense
of the brooding creepiness of the first season (though, as the
clairvoyant macrocephalic hospital dishwashers who serve as the
show's Greek chorus say, "in the silliness there is
evil"). The more wicked jokes from the first are merely
milked here, rather than elaborated on, and the overreaching
exploitation of stock cliches and sentimental parody suffer for
seeming all too authentic. Also, it's always distractingly
apparent that this is just TV; the thumbnail-frame ratio compositions seem cramped and garish on
the large screen, the unbelievably low production standards are
made to look worse than they actually are when magnified, and the
narrative is hopelessly disjointed. For this installment, von
Trier has allowed some of his Dogme95 collective collaborators
direct a few episodes, and the stylistic inconsitencies are
glaring, as well. Still, though, in a production this sprawling,
there's still a lot to enjoy...a pathetic neurosurgeon's
obsession with and rambling monologues to his fecal matter, a
hopelessly depressed hospital administrator's Saturnalian
'gestalt therapy', the juvenile rituals of the Secret Fraternity
of Scientists, the decidedly European additions of full-frontal
nudity and exploding heads, a few genuinely hilarious and/or
chilling moments, plus Udo Kier as not only a gargantuan,
distended spider-baby but also as a full-blown demon complete
with cape and rubber horns. If all television were as anarchic
and oblivious to demographic concerns, the world would be a much
better place, and it's a good appetizer for Dogme95's upcoming
"Idioterne", and for the third "Riget"
season, as well. The perfect weekday rental for those who
actually miss "Sinefeld".
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