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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Five Obstructions, The
Koch Lorber Films


7.2

based on 21 reviews
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based on 4 votes
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MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Patrick Bauchau, Lars von Trier, Jørgen Leth, Jacqueline Arenal, Daniel Hernández Rodríguez, Alexandra Vandernoot, Marie Dejaer, and Marie Dejaer

Lars von Trier, true to form, has a bizarre way of showing his regard for mentor Jørgen Leth whose 1967 short film The Perfect Human, he claims to have seen 20 times. Von Trier challenges Leth to remake the film following an increasingly difficult set of obstructions. (Film Forum)

GENRE(S):	Documentary \| Drama \| Foreign
WRITTEN BY:	Jørgen Leth Lars von Trier Asger Leth Sophie Destin
DIRECTED BY:	Jørgen Leth Lars von Trier
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 5, 2004 Theatrical: May 26, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	90 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	Denmark / Switzerland / Belgium / France
LANGUAGE(S):	Danish, English, French & Spanish (with English subtitles)

Original title "De Fem Benspænd"

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

This movie equivalent of Robert Rauschenberg's artwork "Erased de Kooning" is funny, ornery, and ultimately inspiring.

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

As he rises to each challenge, you realize that von Trier, the most exalted of prankish sadists, has orchestrated the filmmaking equivalent of the story of Job. The Five Obstructions glories in art, life, and the faith that binds them.

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A complete original. This ingenious, almost indescribable film won't remind you of anything else because there's nothing else like it.

Time Richard Corliss

The next time you hear a director complain about the studio or his stars or the weather or whatever, think of what Jorgen Leth achieved with Lars von Trier as his boss -- when five obstructions became five splendid opportunities.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Riveting, and frankly it's great fun to see Leth best the smirky von Trier five times running.

New York Daily News Staff (Not credited)

A sensational oddity. It sheds light on the creative process, on filmmaking and on the durability of friendship and professional respect despite the odds.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Keep "Survivor" and "Fear Factor," and give me this spellbinding mind teaser, the ultimate game for movie buffs.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

It's a treat to be diverted by a film that actually has a brain.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

From its very first frames it exerts a powerful fascination.

Variety David Stratton

Though billed as a documentary, The Five Obstructions doesn't easily fall into any category. Perhaps it's best described as a game, in which a pair of Danish film directors from different generations spar with one another in a highly civilized, and surprisingly entertaining, fashion.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Watching The Five Obstructions is at once like witnessing two chess masters playing dominoes and like spying on a series of therapy sessions. Mr. von Trier clearly sees himself as a maniacal psychoanalyst.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Even those who dismiss Von Trier as a talented sadist might reconsider after seeing this revealing and ultimately poignant documentary -- and the funny thing is, on the surface it's not even about him.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Part of what hooks you to this movie is how Leth outsmarts his taskmaster, and how the two men have divergent, almost incompatible aesthetic ideals.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

In The Five Obstructions, we meet the Danish filmmaker for an extended period, and he's exactly what a fan might hope and expect him to be like: impish, insightful, unpredictable, mildly sadistic and rigorously honest.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

It all feels like a performance for the camera: von Trier as madman producer taunting the elder filmmaker.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The Five Obstructions clearly calls for a sequel, in which Leth would require von Trier to remake "Dogville," despite Obstructions 6 through 10.

The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck

In this enjoyable if trivial battle between von Trier's psychodrama theatricality and Leth's cool formalism, it's ultimately the viewer who comes out the winner.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

An unclassifiable film-school exercise--one part documentary, one part psychodrama, and one part mock manifesto--The Five Obstructions mainly serves to illuminate the game-like nature of Lars von Trier's aesthetic project.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

The film is also valuable for raising awareness about Leth, whose work hasn't been as widely recognized as that of his European contemporaries, but who now makes an impressive case for his skills, five times over.

Film Threat Staff (Not credited)

As Leth overcomes each obstacle set before him, the film becomes a work of extraordinary artistry, intellectual exhilaration, emotional uplift, and outright affection.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

In short, it's amusing only if you agree not to think very much about it.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 4 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Chad S. gave it an8:
Mikheil Kalatozishvili's "Soy Cuba"(American title: "I am Cuba) used a traditional editing style to convey its communist ideology which sort of undermined their intent to be oppositional to first-world cinema. In Jorgen Leth's first film(set in Cuba), cineasts wake up because the two Danes make a correction on the 1964 classic by applying a Vertovian(Dziga Vertov) approach to editing(eyeblinks) that would've been helped strenghten its pro-Castro stance. "The Five Obstructions" is dazzling, sometimes infuriating. Jorgen Leth proclaims that all animated films are uninteresting, which would seem to infer that his own stab at a cartoon is better than "Fantasia", "Princess Mononoke", and Richard Linklater's "Waking Life", whom Leth owes a nod to. That said, the animated short is great; the Calcutta film, likewise, which Von Trier hillariously slams. Hillarious, because the author of the Dogma manifesto ignores his own obstructions(mainly the tenet which states that there be no genre) when he made "Dancer in the Dark". "The Five Obstructions", like Jonathan Caouette's "Tarnation", finds a new way to document real life.

Dmitry P. gave it a 10:
This fast-paced and endlessly surprising movie starts out uproariously funny, then transcends itself to become emotionally moving and, yes, profound.

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Five Obstructions, The Koch Lorber Films

Five Obstructions, The
Koch Lorber Films