Il re è vivo

I was inspired to write this because the other review was so dismissive of the film. The set-up may be contrived, but I found Levring's film compelling, visually inventive, richly atmospheric, and often surprising. The relationships among the characters drew me in and the performances were gripping. All told, the film provides an inspiring example of the Dogma approach to filmmaking that ventures beyond the formulaic Hollywood mold. Props to Levring and the actors!

Wow. I was speechless after seeing this movie for the first time (a feeling I still experience even after almost a dozen viewings). I've never seen such an eloquent, spellbinding, and above all logical, presnetation of King Lear. Truly the best setting for such a play is by a broken down bus in a desert.

The first thing that struck me about the film was the unsurpassed clarity of the footage. Even in dark scenes around the campfire everyone's face is perfectly in focus and the viewer feels he is with this poor unfortunate bus travelers in where ever it was they got stuck. The well placed cut aways of the lost traveler in the desert enhance the story-telling experience.

Sike, this movie sunks.

This is one of those films with a great potential. Brilliant actors, a debut from a very interesting director and a haunting "Survivor"-ish plot.

But it does not work at all.

To start with the good thing: The cinematography is stunning. The beauty of the Namibian desert shows itself as a merciless surrounding, also in the pictures. And then there is the acting. Quite allright. Jennifer Jason Leigh has never been better. Bruce Davison also seems to have developed his character from Altman's "Short Cuts".

Then the disappointments: Janet McTeer. Romane Bohringer. And the plot. Why on earth does Levring pick "Lear" for their play? The whole idea of letting Shakespeare articulate their despair and inner longings does not work. It seems like a facade. And it is clear that the tragedies takes place because of the choice of "Lear". They just needs to fit in in the Script by Levring and Academy Award winner Anders Thomas Jensen.

And the sex. It takes about three days, then more or less all of the characters are sexually frustrated. Dahh!! Sex is always the easy way out when you are in need of a crisis in a plot. Janet McTeer's part totally falls apart, mainly because of that ridiculous idea. The sex makes the plot fall promptly to the ground. Instead they could have focused on the dialogue. There must have been conversation between all of the characters, but we mainly see them talking in smaller groups. Their talking though is as dead as "Lear" and the rest of the film.

"The King Is Alive" still is not the worst Danish dogme '95 movie yet. But comparing it to the most recent of the homegrown dogme '95 films "Italiensk for begyndere" by Lone Scherfig, this one fails badly. It is not a good film. It is a bad one. But it is beautiful.

The only Dogma movie at the 2000 Cannes film festival, The King is Alive is, like all Dogmas, pumped with negative energy and pessimism, yet remains strangely humorous and always entertaining. It tells the story of a bus breakdown in the North African desert, and the decent into lunacy of the already-eccentric group of passengers, who eventually decide to put on an absurd production of King Lear to pass the time.

Admittedly, the injection of Shakespeare feels like something of a stunt, and some dissenters even complained that the desert was too unfairly photogenic for the Dogma principals. But The King is Alive grows horrific on its own terms, like a sophisticated Blair Witch Project but without an evil other for them (or us) to run away from.

The offbeat cast includes Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bruce Davison, the great David Bradley, the late Brion James, and Janet McTeer who, as a neurotic American, vulgarizes her way through a killer scene where she demands to know about her husband's taste in women.

While shifting airports by bus in Africa, a group of passengers is driven to the middle of nowhere in the desert by the driver that is following a defective compass. They run out of gas and they reach a ghost village inhabited by a single man, Kanana (Peter Kubheka). One passenger that has experience with desert gives five advices to the others to survive in the spot, among them to keep the spirit high, while he travels through the desert seeking for help. One intellectual in the stranded group suggests the performance of King Lear to keep the morale of the survivors. Along the days, while hope decreases, the tension increases among the survivors.

"The King is Alive" is a tragedy in a tragedy, with a group of people stranded in the desert performing King Lear to keep the spirit of the survivors. The story has a breathless beginning with the driver absolutely lost and the despair of the passengers and is raw and disturbing, when the survivors return to a primitive stage of human condition. The performances are outstanding and this Dogma 85 film was released in Brazil on VHS by Cult Films Distributor. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Rei Está Vivo" ("The King is Alive")