Danish mentor of Lars Von Trier.
"The Perfect Human" (1967) -- Distanced and interesting thirteen
minute movie about "humans," a man and a woman. Eating, dancing, drinking,
etc., all in front of a clinical white backdrop. This movie was later
remade five different times in The Five Obstructions.
The Five Obstructions (2003) -- Directed with
Lars Von Trier. A movie about two
extremely talented and intelligent filmmakers who respect each other's work but
who have very different approaches. Where Von Trier is more messy and
internal, Leth is perfect and distanced. Though Von Trier respects Leth,
he finds this lack of affect a problem and wants to help him with a kind of
"therapy" in which Von Trier asks Leth to remake his 1967 short film "The
Perfect Human" five different times, each time giving him "obstructions" in
order to make the movies potentially more crappy. Leth, however, thrives
on these limitations and treats them instead as gifts that work in his favor.
(Not to give anything away.) The movie is one of a kind in that it is sort
of a documentary, sort of a short movie collection, and definitely tells a
certain kind of story.
Copyright (c) Sep 2005 - Sep 2007 by Rusty Likes Movies