The King Is Alive

This film is flawed, there is no question.

But it's highest moments soar high above anything that the film making corporations could hope to attain.

See it if you're not afraid to see the best and worst of humanity, in a story told by someone who makes films for adults.

A brilliant and yet cruel tale of the human condition by the words of Shakespeare's King Lear. The true nature of this film is in the relationship between the rawness of the desert and the fragility of the social being. Amazingly, the spirit of the desert witnesses the demise of a group of people who are facing death, acting Shakespeare to deceive it and ironically get deceived by fate itself at the end. The realistic notion, given by hand-held camera as well by the wonderful colors captured, will dive one's in the crucial themes of the movie: death, love and hope.

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.

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!

• but the movie is deader'n a doornail. It reminded me of "The Claim", another darling of some of our local newspaper critics. Both films are pretentious and dull, with no characters to care about, and nothing much to say. ("The Claim", I guess, is saying that if you sell your wife and baby, you'll feel bad about it later even if you've made a lot of money in the interim. Well, duhhh!) "The King is Alive" is apparently saying that bus drivers not only navigate by compass in the desert, but are stupid enough not to notice that their compasses haven't moved a fraction of an inch over several score miles. It is also saying people waiting around for rescue on the desert are going to get dirty, grow beards and get upset, which I already knew. What I didn't know, was that people in such situations will engage in amateur theatrics. Really? Okay, but so what?

A camera placed within five inches of the character's face may be of interest to a dermatologist, but brother, dialogue and body language reveals character, not extreme close ups.

I couldn't make it to the end of "The King is Alive". I left as soon as one of the characters, presented as thirst-crazed and exhausted before he finds the body of the would be rescuer who set off several days before, manages to stroll back to the group somehow refreshed.

Neither film maker seems to have taken to heart the concept of shot-continuity. Come on guys, you MUST have heard of it in film-making 101. Or aren't they teaching that anymore?

If this is Danish Dagme, I'll take Dagmar.