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THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS
2004, Koch Lorber Films, 90 mins. 35 mm print source: Koch Lorber Films
Directed by Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier. Produced by Carsten Holst. Photographed by Dan Holmberg. Edited by Camilla Skousen & Morten Hojbjerg. With Jørgen Leth, Lars von Trier, Jacqueline Arenal, Daniel Hernández Rodriguez, Patrick Bauchau, Alexandra Vandernoot.
From Film# Special Issue / Leth (2002, Danish Film Institute):
Dear Jørgen,
The challenge/The Film you are supposed to make/solve is called The Five Obstructions.
As a starting point I would like you to show me a 10-minute film you have made, The Perfect Human Being [sic].
We will watch the movie together and talk about it-then I will set up limitations, commands or prohibitions, which means you have to do the film all over again
This we will do five times-of this the title. I would find it natural if our conversations became a part of the final movie-with the six small films, of course.
I hope you're happy with the assignment. Maybe the subject for the first movie should be something we came to an agreement about? Of course we would have the most fun if the subject is of a character that gives us as big a difference as possible between film one and six?
Let me know how you feel about this. Please write.
Best regards,
Lars
Dear Lars,
I find the assignment tempting. I can see an interesting development between film one and six, the route around the obstacles, the conversations, I'm sure we'll get a lot out of this. It is exciting. I look forward to your obstructions.
I really like the idea about having to change, adjust, and reduce according to given conditions in the process.
Best regards
Jørgen
To understand the mindset that underlies The Five Obstructions
one must understand the documentary 'poetics' of Lars von Trier and
Jørgen Leth as they themselves have formulated them in the following
texts:
DEFOCUS
We are searching for something fictional, not factual. Fiction is limited by our imagination and facts by our insight, and the part of the world that we are seeking cannot be encompassed by a "story" or embraced from an "angle". The subject matter we seek is found in the same reality that inspires fiction-makers; the reality that journalists believe they are describing. But they cannot find this unusual subject matter because their techniques blind them. Nor do they want to find it, because the techniques have become the goal itself.
If one discovers or seeks a story, to say nothing of a point that communicates, then one suppresses it. By emphasizing a single pattern a simple pattern, genuine or artificial; by presenting the world with a picture puzzle with solutions chosen in advance.
The story, the point, the disclosure and the sensation have taken this subject matter from us-this; the rest of the world which is not nearly so easy to pass on, but which we cannot live without!
The story is the villain. The theme presented at the expense of all decency. But also the case in which a point's importance is presumably submitted for the audience to evaluate, assisted by viewpoints and facts counterbalanced by their antitheses. The worship of pattern, the one and only, at the expense of the subject matter from which it comes. How do we rediscover it, and how do we impart or describe it? The ultimate challenge of the future-to see without looking: to defocus! In a world where the media kneel before the altar of sharpness, draining life out of life in the process, the DEFOCUSIST will be the communicators of our era-nothing more, nothing less!
-Lars von Trier, March 2000
THE MOMENT COMES
The part of a film I enjoy the most is when one can feel time flow through a single scene. There should always be room for time. A film should breath naturally. When we go out, we set a trap for reality, so that we may persuade it to fit into that mindset we have organized. We are relaxed, attentive and noncommittal. Things happen when they happen. We are just as clever and just as stupid as fishermen. We can go out when we like in any defined direction and sometimes we stumble over a magic moment. That is what we are searching for, but we must not be too eager or too sure of it. Experience tells us that it exists. In our work, we are armed with our instinct, our eyes and our ears. We concentrate on empty space as well as occupied space. We observe silence and noise. We trust in chance's limitless gifts and yet the place in which we find ourselves isn't necessarily a product of chance.
The moment suddenly comes when we are no longer astonished by its appearance. There we are. We are ready to capture it, to come to terms with it. We don't know where it will lead us. We follow the flow, we see where it wants to go and what it wants to do with us. We watch it take form and come together but we must ground it while it is still flowing and not too defined. We are in love. A feeling has hit us, we try to perceive it during its superficial passage yet are afraid of losing it again by understanding it too well.
-Jørgen Leth, April 2000
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Screening Dates
March 13, 2004
1:00 p.m.
INTRODUCED BY JORGEN LETH
Day Program (PDF)
Related Programs
Lars Von Trier
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