Kingdom, The: Series Two (Lars von Trier) (DVD)

Connect to Facebook/Twitter, recommend via email and much more.

---

If you were unfortunate enough to catch "Kingdom Hospital," the Stephen King-produced Americanization of Lars von Trier´s Danish series "The Kingdom," please put it out of your mind. I know I have, or at least I´ve tried my damndest. The American version maintained some of the basic trappings of Trier´s medical-horror-comedy-soap opera, but captured absolutely none of his acerbic wit.

Trier has a special touch with comedy that is shared by few other directors (Todd Solondz is the only name that leaps to mind immediately), the ability to be simultaneously hilarious and utterly mortifying. In one of his best films "The Idiots," he achieves the trick through sheer bad taste alloyed with biting social commentary; the name John Waters also leaps to mind, but Waters is a far gentler sensibility than Trier who reportedly finds the ending of the Marquis de Sade´s "Justine" to be "hilarious." In a troubling masterpiece like "Dancer in the Dark," he heaves giant massive loads of pure unadulterated sentiment right in the viewer´s face, leaving one to wonder exactly how far over the top an artist has to go in order to achieve transcendence.

In "The Kingdom" ("Riget" in Danish), Trier and co-writer Niels Vørsel rely on two simple methods to simultaneously repulse and amuse: the grotesque and the absurd. "The Kingdom" is set in a Danish hospital where the patients come second (if they´re lucky) to the doctors´ personal ambitions and obsessions while everyone, including the doctors, is held in thrall to the supernatural world that threatens to spill over into the hospital. "The Kingdom" was released in two four-episode installments. The first (released in 1994) concerned the story of a little girl whose botched operation was covered up by the hospital, and concluded with her spirit, as well as a few others, finally being put to rest.

The second (released in 1997) picks up right where the original left off, only with a whole new set of paranormal obstacles to hurdle. As in the first series, pesky patient and self-professed psychic Sigrid Drusse (Kirstin Rolffes) leads the various paranormal investigations, much to the chagrin of the hospital staff. This time the hospital is facing a different supernatural menace. Judith (Birgitte Raaberg) has just given birth to the demon child of the hospital´s evil founder Dr. Aage Kruger (Udo Kier) who comes screaming out of mom´s vagina as a full-grown man. You might expect this to be a pretty scary event, but in the world of "The Kingdom" people learn to adjust; the kid is dubbed "Little Brother" (also played by Kier) and just because he´s a gelatinous mass of ugliness is no reason that mother and son can´t form a close bond. This becomes a problem when dad decides he wants his little boy back.

But this is only one of many plot threads in "The Kingdom 2," each of which vies for main billing. By the second series, the ever-cynical Trier had obviously tired of the horror-trappings of the original, and decided to indulge his melodramatic muse without the slightest inhibition (as he also did in "Breaking the Waves," "Dancer in the Dark," and, arguably, in "Dogville" and "Manderlay".) The series evolves/devolves into pure soap opera silliness, though always with the grotesque at its core. Prof. Bondo (Baard Owe) is obsessed with hepatic tumors, and finds the absolutely perfect one in one of his dying patients. But due to legal troubles he is unable to study the tumor even after the patient dies… unless he first has the diseased liver transplanted into his own body (don´t ask for a full explanation here.)

But Bondo´s really only a bit player. The real star of the series is Stig (Ernst-Hugo Jaregard), a disgraced Swedish surgeon who is condemned to spend eternity in Denmark. Stig has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and the show positive wallows in his vile behavior. He considers all Danes to be inferior beings, and frequently hides away on the balcony where he gazes nostalgically across the water to his beloved home country and shouts "Danish scum!" As the second series kicks off, Stig has recently returned a trip to Haiti where he secured "zombie juice" to help control a blackmailing orderly. Stig eventually commits the ultimate faux pas: pissing off his Danish girlfriend Rigmor (Ghita Norby) who begins to practice her marksmanship in the hospital corridors in case she ever has a chance to get even with Stig.