The Five Obstructions

Name: The Five Obstructions
Genre: Documentary
Released: May 26, 2004
Duration: 90 min
Rating: 79

2004

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 22 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Ratings

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6.9

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6.9	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 12 Ratings

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The Five Obstructions

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Movie Details & Credits

Koch Lorber Films | Release Date: May 26, 2004 | Unrated

Summary: Lars von Trier 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.

Director: Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Unrated

Runtime: 90 min

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Metascore

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Critic Reviews

100

David Sterritt

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

100

Kenneth Turan

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

Marc Savlov

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

TV Guide Magazine 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. Read full review

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. Read full review

Sean Axmaker

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

Jonathan Rosenbaum

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

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User Reviews

ChadS.

Nov 9, 2005

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 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.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful

JLuis_001

Apr 30, 2023

The Five Obstructions is an impressive artistic exploration between mentor and pupil.
A play between the two that opens a huge door into how Von Trier worked and why he has received so much criticism for it.
Even though the film is 20 years old, I had never seen it and I think it's theThe Five Obstructions is an impressive artistic exploration between mentor and pupil.
A play between the two that opens a huge door into how Von Trier worked and why he has received so much criticism for it.

Even though the film is 20 years old, I had never seen it and I think it's the greatest display of his insecurities and it's impressive to see how he allowed them to be exposed.

A film for a very limited audience but rewarding all the same.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

CarlB.

Jan 3, 2009

The concept behind the film is interesting, but the film itself is boring.

0 of 1 users found this helpful

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