'The Kingdom Exodus' Is Lars von Trier's Trippy, Bizarro Masterpiece

[Celerity]

A bonkers, riveting, and utterly unusual trilogy nearly 25 years in the making, the auteur finally completes his “Kingdom” trilogy with a new season that is out of this world.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/obsessed/the-kingdom-exodus-review-lars-von-triers-trippy-bizarro-masterpiece



Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom—whose first two seasons aired in 1994 and 1997—was an absolutely bonkers Danish blend of hospital drama and otherworldly thriller that gave David Lynch’s Twin Peaks a run for its money in auteur eccentricity. It also had a delightfully demented sense of humor. That—along with its mind-boggling madness—remains firmly intact in the series’ long-awaited and grand return, The Kingdom Exodus, a five-part follow-up helmed by von Trier and Morten Arnfred that (along with its prior two runs) premieres on Nov. 27 on Mubi. Fans of deranged delirium won’t want to miss it.

As befitting a work by the Antichrist and The House That Jack Built director, The Kingdom Exodus is a provocative piece of batshit showmanship, and one that immediately begins in self-reflexive fashion, with elderly Karen (Bodil Jørgensen) watching the conclusion to season two of The Kingdom on TV, ejecting her DVD, and proclaiming, “How can they peddle such half-baked hooey. That’s no ending.”

She’s right—the show’s sophomore outing concluded on a potentially apocalyptic cliffhanger that, for the past 25 years, remained unresolved. Ever the prankster, von Trier has no interest in definitive outcomes, nor in fashioning his long-running saga in logical terms—notions that he cops to in one of his trademark jibber-jabber credit-sequence monologues (now delivered behind a curtain, so that only his shoes are visible), when he states, “There’s no end to the nonsense, and where does it all lead?”

The Kingdom Exodus dispenses a host of answers to its mysteries, but, like the questions themselves, they’re wholly irrational. Von Trier’s series is a go-with-the-flow affair that’s exhilarating for its inimitable blend of wackadoo medical-profession comedy, culture-clash warfare, and quasi-biblical paranormal pandemonium. With its former protagonist, hypochondriac sleuth Drusse (Kirsten Rolffes), having perished in an elevator accident, von Trier turns his attention to Karen, a new meta-Miss Marple who—after bingeing The Kingdom—sleepwalks from her apartment to the actual, newly renovated Kingdom hospital.

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[chowder66]

1. I'm waiting for the series to finish so I can binge it. : )