ROYAL BLOOD
Lars von Trier prescribes us this comic-horror medical odyssey.
Iwas always very afraid of hospitals,” says Lars von Trier. “But things you are afraid of can often be things you’re fascinated by also. And hospitals, especially these big hospitals, have so many possibilities in them.” Four years on from last film The House That Jack Built, the great Dane returns with The Kingdom Exodus, the third season of his freaky series set in the bustling Copenhagen Rigshospitalet.
Like David Lynch with Twin Peaks: The Return, it’s taken von Trier 25 years to get back to The Kingdom. Partly, he spent the past two decades evolving into one of world cinema’s most celebrated directors. Several original cast members also died shortly after the second season. But it was something more practical that finally brought him back. “I needed to work,” he shrugs, speaking to Teasers over Zoom from Denmark. “So I jumped on The Kingdom.”
Von Trier was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and while his gestures are shaky on camera, his mind is still tack-sharp. Even the strains of a five-episode shoot that lasted from February to May 2021 didn’t deter him. “He came every day, even though he was [ill],” says actress Bodil Jørgensen, who stars here. “Every day he was
there, all the hours, and [as we went on] he moved quicker and was more and more focused.”
Jørgensen plays patient Karen, first glimpsed watching a DVD of the end credits of The Kingdom II, in one of the show’s many meta references, before she enters the supernaturally charged hospital. Other newbies include Mikael Persbrandt’s Swedish medic, who loves to incorrectly assemble IKEA furniture, and a lawyer, situated in a toilet cubicle, played by Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood, Godzilla vs. Kong), echoing his father Stellan (Thor), who was a similar character in Season 2.
While von Trier was originally inspired by Belphegor, Or Phantom Of The Louvre, as a strange creature haunts the famous French gallery in a 1965 French miniseries – “I saw when I was a kid” – The Kingdom has evolved over its three seasons into something utterly unique.
“I look at it as a new genre in a way,” says Jørgensen, who previously featured in Trier’s Dogme 95 film The Idiots. “It’s very strong satire with, of course, a lot of humour. But then it has this poetic quality.”
Von Trier has clearly not lost any of his mischievousness either, with the hospital staff now debating the merits of using gender-neutral pronouns – a clear nod to PC attacks on language. “I’m afraid of political correctness,” he gulps. “You know when people go together in groups and have a specific opinion about something and believe that it’s their right to enforce it on all… I think that’s dangerous in a democracy.”
‘Hospitals have so many possibilities in them’ LARS VON TRIER
THE KINGDOM EXODUS IS ON MUBI FROM 27 NOVEMBER.