I first heard about this some fifteen years ago when I was loosely associated with some documentary film-makers and it was one of those ‘catch it one day’ films. Finally, I did.

The basic premise is this: Lars Von Trier tasks his friend Jörgen Leth to remake his film The Perfect Human five times, each with a new ‘obstruction’ imposed by Von Trier. From the off, these obstructions are multi-faceted. In the first remake, Von Trier insists that no edit can last more than 12 frames, that the open questions in the original must be answered and, when Leth is seen smoking a cigar while waiting for his mission, that the film must be shot on location in Cuba.

What emerges is a back and forth between the two film-makers, with the obstructions being challenged and reinterpreted between them in a gentle wrestling match as to who is in control of the project. Von Trier is on a mission to take Leth out of his comfort zone and Leth, while receptive to the process and gladly accepting of the obstructions, seems quite content with who he is.

These kinds of formalised restrictions on creativity are always interesting. I’ve done a few of them myself, both as writer and film-maker.1 The end products aren’t always satisfying or satisfactory, but the process takes you to places you wouldn’t necessarily go to under your own steam. This is certainly the case for Leth in The Five Obstructions as he heads into waters he finds deeply uncomfortable. Von Trier just seems like a sadistic weirdo, but that’s kind of appealing to watch, so long as you don’t actually have to work with him.

The Five Obstructions (2003) is available to rent or buy from Amazon Prime Video, or DVDs may be available on eBay.

1. The 3 Day Novel Competition, 48 Hour Short Film Weekenders, my 52 Murders project and a self-initiated piece of masochism called The October Tapes that my fetid brain came up with while Up at the Big House. ↩︎