HORROR MONTH #30: The Kingdom, by Lars von Trier (1994)

Type of Media: Miniseries

The medical drama is, at this point, a staple of television. It takes the ideal of the doctor, a reasoned paragon of science, and brings it back down to human level by giving doctor characters flaws and idiosyncrasies. Often these flaws stem from things that, logically, should be easy to overcome, but people just aren't like that. They don't always follow logic, and are often ruled by their more primal senses. It is through these doctors that nature gets to reclaim some ground from science.

Lars von Trier's miniseries The Kingdom (also known by its Danish title, Riget) at first feels like just a medical drama with a bit of a supernatural edge to it. Its characters are motivated by things like lust and desire for power, like the medical student Mogge who breaks protocol to give bizarre gifts to an older nurse he's in love with, or the pathologist Dr. Bondo who schemes a way to keep a dying man's liver as a specimen so he can finish his research. The ghostly ambulance that arrives every night and then disappears, and the ghost girl who rings a bell in some of the wards, initially seem like tacked-on subplots.

However, the series starts showing elements that signal things at the hospital are not in order. The only truly 'good' character is Mrs. Drusse, a spiritualist trying to find the ghost girl who winds up diving into the hospital's sordid history. The hospital, built on old bleaching pits, starts breaking down and leaking water. The characters that seem the most informed are two dishwashers with Down syndrome, who speak as if they know everything that's going on in the hospital but remain isolated from the rest of the characters. The hospital has become corrupted by what's going on inside, and some force is taking it down.

von Trier made The Kingdom after finishing his Europa trilogy, and it was initially seen as a step down for a director who had already established himself in the arthouse scene. He was working for Danish television with a low budget, shooting on handheld cameras that looked so bad he colored the film to hide the quality, and borrowing supplies from the hospital he shot in to use as props. The Kingdom would end up being among his most popular works, though, and the limitations he experienced while making it would pave the way for the Dogme 95 movement he started with fellow Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, which laid out filmmaking rules designed to empower the director to focus on story rather than visuals.

The Kingdom is a good watch for fans of arthouse film, as well as fans of Twin Peaks as The Kingdom similarly uses soapy drama to sneak in strange supernatural elements. Also, if you're a fan of my previous recommendation Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, The Kingdom was a key inspiration for the making of that show. It was good enough to break into the 1001 Movies to Watch Before You Die list despite being a miniseries, so put it on for some creepy hospital action.