The Five Obstructions

I watched a very interesting movie The Five Obstructions with a friend’s recommendation. In the movie, Jørgen Leth is challenged by Lars von Trier to redo his 1967 short film The Perfect Human with the following five obstructions –
1. do it in Cuba; no shot longer than 12 frames
2. do it in the worst place in the world without showing the place
3. do it in whatever way (as a punishment on the unsuccessful result of task #2)
4. do it as cartoon (Jørgen’s most hated genre)
5. reading a narration written by Lars

These five obstructions possibly present the extreme ways an artist should criticize his own works: to change the context; to push it to the extreme situation; to deal with the “impossible” total freedom; to do it by one’s most hated means; to know oneself through a competitor’s eyes. Leth’s responses to these obstructions are fantastic. You have to watch this film!

The 12-minute long The Perfect Human is just brilliant, stylish and humorous. We see a man and a woman, both good-looking and elegant, living in an abstract space, like vacuum. They behave in a narcissistic and detached way, detached from their living environment and detached from each other. The voiceover keeps asking a lot of questions in search of what a PERFECT human is, which has a satirical effect to make us laugh at ourselves.