MUBI
Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom—whose first two seasons aired in 1994 and 1997—was a completely bonkers Danish mix of hospital drama and otherworldly thriller that gave David Lynch’sTwin Peaks a run for its cash in auteur eccentricity. It additionally had a delightfully demented humorousness. That—together with its mind-boggling insanity—stays firmly intact within the collection’ long-awaited and grand return, The Kingdom Exodus, a five-part follow-up helmed by von Trier and Morten Arnfred that (together with its prior two runs) premieres on Nov. 27 on Mubi. Followers of deranged delirium received’t need to miss it.
As befitting a piece by the Antichrist andThe Home That Jack Constructeddirector, The Kingdom Exodus is a provocative piece of batshit showmanship, and one which instantly begins in self-reflexive trend, with aged 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 proper—the present’s sophomore outing concluded on a doubtlessly apocalyptic cliffhanger that, for the previous 25 years, remained unresolved. Ever the prankster, von Trier has little interest in definitive outcomes, nor in fashioning his long-running saga in logical phrases—notions that he cops to in one in all his trademark jibber-jabber credit-sequence monologues (now delivered behind a curtain, in order that solely his sneakers are seen), when he states, “There’s no finish to the nonsense, and the place does all of it lead?”
The Kingdom Exodus dispenses a bunch of solutions to its mysteries, however, just like the questions themselves, they’re wholly irrational. Von Trier’s collection is a go-with-the-flow affair that’s exhilarating for its inimitable mix 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 consideration to Karen, a brand new meta-Miss Marple who—after bingeing The Kingdom—sleepwalks from her condominium to the precise, newly renovated Kingdom hospital.
Whether or not she’s a spirit or merely dreaming is up for debate, however, as soon as inside, she units about trying to find Little Brother (Udo Kier), the gangly-limbed mutant ghost child of neurosurgeon Judith (Birgitte Raaberg). Whereas Judith ostensibly killed her offspring, Karen doesn’t imagine that Little Brother is useless, though she is anxious that he’s drowning. That worry propels her into the bowels of the Kingdom, the place she encounters a statue of Ogier the Dane with the Latin inscription, “See and heed. Exodus is a double-edged sword.”
On her quest, Karen companions with orderly Balder (Nicolas Bro), who’s referred to as Bulder as a result of he appears to be like similar to Drusse’s portly pal with the identical title (performed by Jens Okking). Such doubling is par for the course in The Kingdom Exodus, which additionally fixates on Helmer Jr. (Mikael Persbrandt), who follows in his dad Stig Helmer’s (Ernst-Hugo Järegård) footsteps by transferring to the Kingdom, the place he instantly finds a lot to detest about his colleagues.
That’s very true of Pontopidan (Lars Mikkelsen), an administrative weirdo who treats his aching neck with luggage of frozen peas, and Naver (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a psychotic surgeon who’s continually making mindless ultimatums. Helmer Jr. is a Swede who hates the Danes much more than his father famously did, and von Trier makes use of that antipathy—which ultimately drives Helmer to affix a Swedish Nameless assist group alongside flirty Anna (Tuva Novotny)—to mock each nations with equally ruthless gusto.
As earlier than, The Kingdom Exodus is rife with moldy sepia colours, handheld camerawork, canted visible angles, and conflicts between contrasting forces: science and the supernatural, Swedes and Danes, and lightweight and darkish. The final of these pits Karen and firm towards the Grand Duc (Willem Dafoe), an emissary of Devil who transforms innocents into his minions through a magic coin, creates malevolent doppelgangers of Karen and Balder, and takes the type of an owl—for what purpose, I can not let you know.
Karen additionally makes use of the hospital’s paternoster to journey to the traditional bleach-pond swamp that predated the development of the Kingdom, the place she discovers each critically injured Mona (Laura Christensen) nonetheless moaning and enjoying along with her blocks, and Little Brother, who’s now grown into a large head that goes by the apt title Large Brother. All of the whereas, numerous authentic characters seem and disappear at random, and von Trier offers mystifying Greek-chorus commentary through a weird dishwasher (Jesper Sørensen) and his robot-arm companion (Jasmine Junker), who breaks plates as continuously as she spouts mystical riddles.
The Kingdom Exodus’s huge image is borderline-inscrutable, and its office motion is just barely much less crazy. Von Trier’s narrative detours embody, however usually are not restricted to, incorrect surgical procedures, scuffles between colleagues, and Helmer Jr. voicing absurdly over-the-top progressive opinions. On the similar time, he offers with Anna’s sexual harassment prices by turning to a Swedish lawyer (Alexander Skarsgard) who represents either side of the go well with and who conducts enterprise out of a ladies’s toilet.
It’s becoming that Karen suffers from somnambulism and should sleep with the intention to hear the heartbeat of Large Brother—whose very being is within the Kingdom’s partitions, and whose huge coronary heart is positioned in an arbitrary closet—since von Trier’s story operates based on a loopy form of dream logic that’s understandable within the second (comparatively talking) however is, upon reflection, by and enormous baffling.
The Kingdom Exodus is satire, nightmare and hoax all rolled into one, and although familiarity with its previous installments is a should, such information doesn’t lead to lucidity. From operating gags about company telephone techniques, unattainable parking areas and gender pronouns, to recurring bits about Volvos, fascist terrorism plots and Naver eager to scoop his eyeball out with a spoon—to not point out an out-of-left-field reference to Blade Runner—the collection is ridiculous to a level that’s tough to fathom and simple to like.
Overflowing with overt and delicate echoes of its predecessors (that are revisited in intermittent flashbacks), and culminating with fireplace, brimstone, and different berserk twists and turns, it doesn’t simply embrace psychosis as a topic; it feels intent on producing it in viewers.
Even on this most bountiful of tv eras, The Kingdom Exodus stands alone—or, somewhat, shoulder-to-shoulder with Lynch’sTwin Peaks: The Return—as a peerlessly haunting, hilarious and nutty expression of its creator’s inventive impulses. Rejoice that the chilliness and the damp have returned, and that, thanks to a different cliffhanger, there'll hopefully be extra alternatives sooner or later to, per von Trier, “take the nice with the evil.”