X
- 1994
- TV-MA
- DR1
- 1994
- TV-MA
- DR1
Summary Originally created for Danish television as Riget, Morten Arnfred and Lars von Trier's supernatural thriller The Kingdom chronicles the bizarre occurrences at the title hospital, the largest and most respected hospital in the country. While the series deals with such real-life complications as murder investigations and malpractice sui...
- 1994
- TV-MA
- DR1
- 1994
- TV-MA
- DR1
The Kingdom (Riget)
Season 1 Premiere: Nov 24, 1994
78
8.7
Summary Originally created for Danish television as Riget, Morten Arnfred and Lars von Trier's supernatural thriller The Kingdom chronicles the bizarre occurrences at the title hospital, the largest and most respected hospital in the country. While the series deals with such real-life complications as murder investigations and malpractice sui...
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
78
67% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
33% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 9 Critic Reviews
78
67% Positive
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
33% Mixed
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Even in this most bountiful of television eras, The Kingdom Exodus stands alone—or, rather, shoulder-to-shoulder with Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return—as a peerlessly haunting, hilarious and nutty expression of its creator’s artistic impulses. Rejoice that the chill and the damp have returned.
Von Trier occupies the same position as The Wizard of Oz, and the reverent secondhand Lynchisms would suggest that he knows it. But this lineage of homage comes through most strongly in the overall atmosphere of dreams, a pervasive non-reality that is at turns wondrous and terrifying, banal and miraculous. The elasticity of what’s possible under these oneiric conditions turns the hospital into an organism unto itself.
In the end, it doesn’t feel like Von Trier is apologizing or accusing as much as putting another part of his life into his art. ... In a sense, it feels like a thought that has defined much of his remarkable career and he’s unpacking how that belief impacted his life and work through this ambitious five-hour film.
One doesn’t need to be a fan of von Trier, a long-standing agent provocateur, or of his equally provocative cinema, to appreciate the show’s sharp assessment of incompetence carried out under the cover of occupational prestige.
Most of the time, “Exodus” is so anarchic that von Trier and company seem to be making it up as they go along. Maybe they are, to some extent, but the irreverent and often farcical comedy benefits from a quarter-century of self-imposed creative discipline by the director.
It’s disappointing to see how Exodus lines up the first two season’s soft targets for von Trier all over again and, in the process, enables not his worst and often most existing tendencies but rather his most boring.
In the first three episodes, at least – we got more of a thin nostalgic wallow, with old running jokes revived and not much in the way of the soul-shredding showmanship and blistering image-making the Antichrist and Melancholia director has since mastered.
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 9 User Ratings
8.7
89% Positive
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
0% Mixed
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
11% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 9 User Ratings
8.7
89% Positive
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
0% Mixed
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
11% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
There are no user reviews yet. Be the first to add a review.
Production Company:
- Danmarks Radio (DR)
- Zentropa Entertainments
- ARTE
- Coproduction Office
- Det Danske Filminstitut
- Film i Väst
- Ginger Pictures
- Greco
- La Sept-Arte
- Liberator Productions
- MEDIA Programme of the European Union
- Nederlandse Omroepstichting (NOS)
- Nordisk Film & TV-Fond
- Norsk Rikskringkasting (NRK)
- RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana
- Sveriges Television (SVT)
- TV Collaboration Fund
- Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR)
Initial Release Date: Nov 24, 1994
Number of seasons: 3 Seasons
Rating: TV-MA
Awards
Danish Film Awards (Robert)
• 6 Wins & 11 Nominations
Bodil Awards
• 7 Wins & 7 Nominations
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
