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When will the next Kingdom come? Wildly creative Danish director Lars von Trier will begin photography on The Kingdom III this summer. Though waiting at least two years for a cliffhanger's resolution is difficult, it should be worth the wait. The first part of von Trier's series was a Danish TV miniseries that earned international theatrical release. A freakish soap opera that takes place entirely in the Kingdom Hospital, the series is both an addictive work of poetic power and a clever send-up of the genre. At last visit, consultant neurosurgeon Stig Helmer (Ernst-Hugo Järegård), a proud Swede who cannot stand the "Danish scum" he must serve, was off to Haiti to perform an exotic voodoo ritual. Mrs. Drusse (Kirsten Rolffes), the medium and hypochondriac who routinely checks herself into the hospital, must leave even though she has finally made contact with Mary, the girl ghost who haunts the elevator. After a freakish accelerated pregnancy, Judith (Birgitte Raaberg) has given birth to a boy with the head of a man. Little Brother, as he is called, is the spitting image of the evil spirit Aage Krüger (Udo Kier), who took the life of poor Mary in 1919. What will Judith's lover, junior registrar Krogshøj (Søren Pilmark), do with the bastard child that is not his? And what will happen when the minister of health visits? Will he witness the evil that is swiftly rising from the bowels of the hospital? He does, but his visions don't compare to the horrors the audience sees in the sequel. Dr. Helmer returns from Haiti and becomes obsessed with a porter's innocent remark: "Just because you're a doctor, you can still get ill." Judith grows to love her disgusting baby (also played by Udo Kier), who upon birth can talk and crawl, but he grows at such a rate that he must be locked in his hospital room. Mrs. Drusse really needs to be admitted after being hit by a car. Much more occurs in these and other characters' stories, but it would ruin the movie to reveal too much. The fun of watching The Kingdom II is in waiting for what hilarious, menacing and inventive new drama will emerge and, regrettably, not be resolved. The open-ended conclusion feels maddening for the viewer, who has just sat through more than four hours of glorious saga, but it's time well spent. Rarely tedious and always surprising, The Kingdom is a perverse delight that, like David Lynch's Twin Peaks, is an absurdist, anarchic and hyper-sensory version of the typical evening soap. A humorous commentary on the addictive claws of TV land, The Kingdom asks if we are as weird as the TV we watch. Enjoy weeping for fictitious children? Here is a gargantuan baby with a slimy man's face and bones that cannot hold up his flesh. Get off on watching simulated sex? Here is an older nurse banging a student in the sleep ward as he dreams of cannibals tearing his flesh. Titillated by ghost stories? Watch a brain-dead girl rock back and forth as she makes contact with a ghost. Like Lynch, von Trier has his vision, style and wicked sense of humor stamped on every frame of film. Shot originally in 16mm, transferred to videotape and then to 35mm, the series has a yellowed, grainy look that appears moist with decay and disease. The hand-held camera effect works well when the scene quickly shifts from Dr. Helmer to the drooling, catatonic patient Mona (whose operation he fudged) to the horned beast running down the corridor. This harsh real-life style, combined with the elusive softness of the dream world, makes The Kingdom all the more frightening. The series plays like the type of nightmare that feels so real, you must convince yourself that it never really happened. It might be best then to convince yourself, after the final credits roll, that The Kingdom II didn't really happen. If you strain too hard from the anticipation of the ending, you could make yourself sick--and the last place you'll want to visit after this movie is a hospital. |
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