"The King Is Alive"
A disparate band of travelers is stranded in a remote part of northern Africa. They take the only means of transportation, a bus, across the desert to safety. But, a faulty compass causes them to stray 500 miles out of their way when the bus breaks down. One intrepid member of the troupe heads off, alone, for help. The rest are left to fend for themselves in latest of the Dogma 95 manifesto films, "The King Is Alive."
Helmer Kristian Levring provides the fourth installment in the stripped-down film aesthetics of the Dogma 95 movement founded by the director and Lars Von Trier. The intent of the movement is to bringing filmmaking back to its essence - no artificial props, lighting or sets, no sound effects or special visual F/X, location shooting only, etc. Levring is fulfills the dictates of the Dogma Manifesto with his story of a journey of lost souls.
When the dozen or so passengers find themselves stranded at an abandoned mining town hundreds of miles from nowhere in the middle of Africa's Namib Desert, they have nothing. The man with survival experience, Jack (Miles Anderson), treks off to find help after explaining the five rules of survival to those remaining - find water, find food, find shelter, stay visible and keep your spirits up.
One of the group, Henry (David Bradley), a stage thespian, realizes the dire strait they are all in and begins to write out all the roles to Shakespeare's "King Lear," mainly to kill the time and keep his sanity. When he suggests to one of the others, a feisty French girl named Catherine (Romane Bohringer), they read the play and learn the parts as a panacea for their dilemma, she glibly turns him down. But, as things get worse and their isolation continues, the appeal to take part in the play increases amongst them all, with each succumbing to the relief the project offers.
As Henry's idea unfolds and takes shape with the players, there is dissention in the ranks as infighting breaks out. Husband and wife Ray (Bruce Davison) and Liz (Janet McTeer) are in conflict as Liz, disillusioned with Ray, humiliates him by openly trying to seduce the other men in the troupe. Amanda (Lia Williams) soon realizes that her significant other, Paul (Chris Walker), is a bully and a pig and wants nothing to do with him. Catherine thinks that Gina (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is just another clinging, needy American, while older Charles just wants carnal knowledge with Gina to prove his masculinity - to himself. Ashley (Brion James) is an alcoholic who, because of the forced isolation without the benefit of booze, is suffering from a severe case of the delirium tremors. The problems facing the stranded travelers do not recede at all and the readings begin to have the cathartic effect that Henry hoped for.
Lenser Jens Schlosser ably captures the wind and sand blown location of the African desert with the gently rolling, and incredibly cruel, sand dunes bringing a flowing grace to the panoramic photography. There are a couple of scenes, obviously shot from an airplane, that show the stark vista of the desert that reminds of the striking desert photography used in "The English Patient" and Bertolucci's "The Sheltering Sky." And all this with a hand-held digital camera.
The story, by Levring and Peter Aalbaek Jensen, required much dedication of purpose by the cast, but tends to keep the viewer at arm's length. There are so many subplots and intrigues between and among the characters, it becomes difficult to empathize with any of them. Not enough time is given to any one player to allow you to know or care about them. The actors do a solid job in each portrayal, but there is not enough time to really flesh anyone out to three-dimensional proportions.
The whole Dogma 95 movement may be a filmmaking tempest in a teapot, but there is a sincere honesty in the craftwork and artistic thought to the story that make a film like "The King Is Alive" an intellectual treat in the desert of Hollywood's summer fare. I give it a B-.
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