The Five Obstructions, by Lars Von Trier and Jorgen Leth, is a documentary that incorporates sections of films. The premise is that Trier has created a challenge for Leth. Leth has to remake, The Perfect Human, five times with different stipulations and rules for each separate recreation. These obstructions included: filming in Cuba, the worst place in the world, filming Brussels and a cartoon remake.
I thought that an interesting perspective about this movie was documenting the filmmaker at work. The audience is given a first hand account of the creative film thinking process. The obstructions that are given as well show the development of the creative process that any director must go through when making a movie.
The most interesting aspects about this movie I thought were the subtle underlying messages. The Perfect Human, I believe is a satire on mainstream Hollywood films. I believe that this movie criticizes that there is a formula to create “cookie-cutter” type of movies. These mass-produced movies take away meaning and excitement from cinema in general. The Five Obstructions wants to convey that by remaking a movie multiple times in different settings with different “obstructions” still in the end it is the same movie. A lot of Hollywood’s mass produced movies contain similar plot lines, but different settings, actors, ext. In the end, The Five Obstructions proves that these movies are just the same. 
No comments:
Post a Comment