The DVD:
In 1967, Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth made a 13 minute black and white short entitled The Perfect Human. This simple cinematic statement, couched in rather arcane artistic terms, was nothing more than a meditation on individuality, a distillation of what society deemed as the faultless persona integrated with the perception of 'being' as a recognizable idiom. Over the years, the movie was celebrated and praised, leading Leth into a successful career as a filmmaker. Little did Leth realize the impact his work had on those it touched. Infamous instigator Lars Von Trier, he of Dogme 95 and other anarchic moviemaking ways, was literally obsessed with The Perfect Human, at one point confessing to watching it 20 times in a single day. This self-proclaimed infant terrible of world cinema, then hit upon a brilliant idea for a follow-up. He would contact Leth, now retired and living in Haiti, and commission him to remake the movie five times. Each version would have its own parameters and limitations – "obstructions" as Von Trier would eventually call them, and Leth would have to rise or fall to the challenge. Surprisingly, the director agreed, and thus began an eye-opening odyssey, one of personal discovery and psychological one-upsmanship. Von Trier hoped to get to the heart of his idol's creative philosophy, with every element of the experiment caught on camera for a proposed documentary. For Leth, The Five Obstructions became a battle for creative survival.

Sometimes, you just have to step back and tip your hat to an individual who has come up with an absolutely crackerjack idea. In the case of Lars Von Trier, his concept for The Five Obstructions was, and is, a work of ballsy, brave bravado. Many of us, even in our most fanciful moments, would never imagine approaching a lifelong hero and muse with the proposition Lars devised for Jørgen Leth. But using his inspiration and his love of The Perfect Human as a catalyst for his calling, Von Trier has formulated – with the help of his subject and his skill, of course – one of the year's most satisfying sagas. Obviously, the mutual admiration society was called to order when this project was begun, since there is a seamless, near effortless exchange between Von Trier and Leth, like old friends getting together as part of some career tontine. But you also know that it must have been hard for Leth, since he is being asked to live up to a standard of insight and invention culled completely from almost 37 years previous.

Part documentary, part cinematic experiment, The Five Obstructions invites us as an audience of outsiders into the world of two renowned directors and asks us to sit as judge, jury and executioner to their ingenious chaos. As the narrative starts, we see the international auteur confront his mentor, delightfully drowning Leth in seemingly impossible restrictions. And over the course of the storyline, we do see cracks in both filmmakers' foundation. By the end, the two have literally become one, representing two similar sides of the same creative coin. The Five Obstructions argues that all artists are the same. If they aren't working themselves into problems, they are proposing ways around them.

The movie is more or less a series of vignettes, each revolving around the planning, the making and the screening of a version of The Perfect Human. The first obstruction, as described by Von Trier, is specific and sadistic. He makes Leth recreate his famed film with a long series of restrictions: No cut may be longer than 12 frames (and since film runs at 24 frames per second, that means the movie will be made of up ½ second shots); The setting must be Cuba (since it is a place Leth has never visited); and the new narrative for The Perfect Human must answer all the questions posed by the original script (said film having lots of "what ifs" scattered throughout its voiceover). Upon hearing his challenge, Leth at first seems overwhelmed. It's almost as if Von Trier has won immediately. Part of the magic in The Five Obstructions is watching two mad geniuses battle like babies over who will win the day. Leth can't believe the gall of this upstart fan who wants to subvert his legacy. And Von Trier can't believe he can get away with it, pushing and prodding a lifelong hero. When he delivers his version of the Cuba Obstruction (as the film is called), we realize that in this competition all bets are off. Leth has risen to the occasion magnificently to make a movie that speaks both to the original and to the new parameters he had to use to create with. The result is spellbinding and deeply affecting. Even Von Trier admits that he hemmed his own goals in by devising the most outlandish set of rules possible. He realizes, and soon the audience does as well, that barriers are just bargaining chips for the creative mind. Someone like Leth uses anything, even adversity, for inspiration.

The second obstruction is a little less specific. Von Trier wants Leth to confront his fears, to make a movie in a place that he finds horrifying and allow the setting to shade the narrative, while not playing an active role in the visuals. Jørgen must also take on the role of the "perfect human" in the plot, recreating the role to fit his own individuality. In essence, Lars is trying to see how atmosphere and location affects an artist. He wonders, does it draw out his or her own inner landscape? Or does it merely present a problem to be dealt with and designed around? The answer is obviously the later, since Leth again finds away to circumvent Von Trier's trappings and presents a painful, if decidedly pretty, look at a squalid brothel slum in Bombay, India. Using a scrim to hide the hideousness and basically following the short film to the letter, this second variation is another bold statement. It hints at the persecution of colonialism while suggesting that perfection is nothing more than perception. Leth is a little awkward onscreen, not really much of an actor. But as the vague, ill-defined faces of the dirt poor people look on, the message of the movie is abundantly clear. Naturally, Von Trier is flummoxed, but not in a good way. He demands the film be remade, as Leth has violated – at least in his mind – two of the limitations placed on him. The director disagrees and this leads to a compromise, the third obstruction.

Number three in the series of five is an open book for Jørgen, a chance to make the movie anyway he wants. Von Trier provides no limits and expects nothing from the filmmaker. This throws Leth for a loop. He expected something a little more concrete, and the lack of aesthetic anchors leaves him befuddled and reaching. One of the glorious insights in The Five Obstructions. is the notion that absolute freedom may, indeed, be the ultimate creative barrier. What he eventually fashions out of his unlimited liberty is another brilliant take on his subject matter, a mixed media presentation in which a kind of film noir narrative is fused to recreations of the old scenes to produce something completely new. Leth seems to be suggesting in this latest adaptation that man is not even remotely perfect, but instead wanders all over the universal map, from faultless to faulty with several unexplainable rest stops in between. Feeling once again defeated, Von Trier pulls out all the stops for the fourth obstruction. He knows that Leth HATES cartoons (a genre that Lars himself also despises) and he determines that the next version of The Perfect Human should be animated. What Von Trier doesn't know is that, as much as he spurns the idea, Leth is determined to find a way around this condition. Working with celebrated Texas artist Bob Sabiston (who helped realize Richard Linklater's Waking Life), the director creates the most compelling of all The Perfect Human reimagings. This colorful, creative masterpiece floors Von Trier, something even he can't deny as he wants to hate it with all his heart. Such a direct dichotomy is at the forefront for most of The Five Obstructions and it's what makes this movie so magnificent.

Basically, Von Trier envisioned this documentary as an attempt to scrutinize and analyze Leth. As with any fan who can't quite understand why a performer or person moves them so, Lars hoped that by challenging and chiding this notoriously reclusive entity, he would learn something about his ability to affect people. The Perfect Human is indeed and evocative and insightful look into what makes people tick (we get a chance to see it, in its entirety, as part of the bonus material on the DVD) and it's easy to see how it could have a profound impact on an audience. Leth is basically a humanist trapped in a philosophical body. He wants to find the answers to universal questions, but can only add his own complicated queries to the mix. Part of why The Perfect Human is so profound is that it never really offers any real human insight until the very last moments, were the main male character laments the loss of love in a series of simple statements that are devastating in their desperation. Each of the "sequels" created by Leth in The Five Obstructions amplifies and exaggerates these words while concurrently turning the short film into a Gospel of sorts. It provides the basic tenants of existence that the future works embellish and interpret. Part of the brilliance of The Five Obstructions is how Von Trier's conceit allows this filmmaker to go back and expand his oeuvre of the subject matter that first brought him to prominence. It's a safe bet that other auteurs would love the chance to go back and revisit some early efforts. Thankfully, Von Trier made it happen here, and the document of such a decision is amazing.

What about the fifth obstruction, you say? What does Von Trier come up with for this final challenge? To detail the design would be to give away one of the film's best moments, a merging of everything The Five Obstructions set out to accomplish in one breathtaking, eloquent elegy. Indeed, through all the backstage stories, the behind the scenes glimpses of how movies are made and the how-to of creative minds functioning under varying degrees of distress, The Five Obstructions is an incredible film. For its insight into the process alone, there is perhaps no better example of entertainment in gestation. As "characters" in this two-person psychodrama, Von Trier is the evil imp to Leth's understanding parent. There is a real mean streak in some of the situations Mr. Dogme 95 demands, but Jørgen always seems to be pleasant and professional. Indeed, if the movie has a single flaw, it's that we don't get enough of the deep personal details we are looking for regarding each of the directors here. Everything about The Five Obstructions is glimpses and snippets, evocative visual stimulants peppered across a killer hypothesis. As a vision of how obstacles lead to ovations, this movie has no equal. It is one of the best, most moving love letters to the art of filmmaking ever conceived. While it may not present us the entire picture, in any area the movie pursues, The Five Obstructions is still a masterpiece of premise, procedure and product.

The Video:
The visual style of The Five Obstructions can best be described as a mixing of media and technology. Each of the five new films shot for the feature is gorgeous, presented in various aspect ratios and representing every manner of movie making, from digital video to good old-fashioned 35mm film. The result is a transfer that is grainy and grandiose, fuzzy and fantastic. Fused together into a single statement about cinema as art, the 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation image is simply gorgeous. The pixelated portions belie the need to have handheld elements handy in order to capture the commotion behind the scenes. And the incredible animated portions of Obstruction Cartoon will leave you speechless. The print provided for this DVD is as evocative and vibrant as a museum painting and almost as priceless.

The Audio:
Both Von Trier and Leth have a decent handle on English, but since this movie was made in various locations around the world, their natural Danish tongue is almost exclusively relied upon. Thankfully, there is an excellent translation of what the two are talking about presented in easy to read subtitles across the bottom of the screen. The rest of the sonic atmosphere of the film is directly dictated by what we see. When Von Trier and Leth are speaking, or when each is addressing the camera individually, the aural element is coarse and tinny (reflecting the internal mic recording dimensions of the filmmaking). But when we turn to the Obstruction films, the sound is sensational. Preserved in a pristine Dolby Digital Stereo mix, The Five Obstructions offers a listening experience equal to its visual splendor.

The Extras:
As stated above, we do get to see the entire presentation of 1967's The Perfect Human in all its monochrome magnificence. Not only a stunning visual work but a deep thinking treatise as well, Leth's little film is short subject perfection. We get just what we need to appreciate the aesthetic, nothing more and nothing less. While there may be those who balk at the seeming surreal circumstances and sense of repetition, wait until the final few minutes. Once our lead character is seated at his meal, the movie mutates into something magnificent. Aside from two trailers for Obstructions (one for the International audience and one for Westerners) the only other bonus here is a feature length commentary by Leth. Joined by an unidentified female interviewer, Leth offers a sparse, yet insightful, narrative description of how he came to be involved in this project. We get a rare glimpse into Lars Von Trier's various phobias (the director hardly travels because of his fear of planes and trains) and Leth jokes that the real reason The Five Obstructions was made was so that Von Trier could live vicariously through his subject. He has nothing but praise for Austin animator Bob Sabiston and marvels at how many of the "obstructions" actually worked to his advantage. The result is an excellent compliment to the film itself, a chance to hear one of the participants in this grand experiment drawing some possible conclusions.

As a final admonition, Koch/Lorber should have provided all five of the Obstruction films, separate and uncut. The elements offered within this quintet of movies are so tantalizing that to not be able to see the entire work outside of the context of the documentary is almost maddening. We would like to do our own compare and contrast, but aren't given the chance.

Final Thoughts:
In many ways, the title The Five Obstructions is a misnomer. Certainly, director Von Trier challenged director Leth to recreate one of his classic narrative experiments under the auspices of a set of constraints. But it appears that very few of these limitations created any real impediments. Indeed, it seems most inspired more ingenuity and vision than they hoped to hamper. One of the most amazing aspects of this delightful documentary is the notion that the creative mind works within any and all parameters, from the most basic to the unbelievably extreme. No matter what Von Trier threw at Leth, the directors both responded in amazing ways. There has, perhaps, been no better look into the mind of a moviemaker – how they think, how they fret, how they overcome – than The Five Obstructions. But the reflection is reciprocal. This is not just the story of how Jørgen Leth reevaluated his 1967 film The Perfect Human under the guidance of an impish troublemaker like Von Trier. It is also the story of how one of Denmark's most inventive directors thought he could humanize his idol. Turns out, the experiment civilized them both. Highly inventive and equally recommended, The Five Obstructions goes to, and celebrates, the very heart of cinema - creativity.

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