The Five Obstructions

The Five Obstructions directed by Lars Van Trier portrays something completely out of the ordinary. Watching and trying to analyze what was going on throughout the documentary film honestly made my brain hurt. There were so many things going on and the act of Van Trier trying to navigate through his Vows of Chastity rules made it seem almost impossible for me to truly understand what was going on. Although this was my initial reaction, I do definitely applaud Van Trier in his efforts to switch up the process of filmmaking. The filmmaking industry surely needed to take a break and lean off the numerous amount of hollywood films during the 2000 time period. I personally like how he also challenges Jordan Leth to create the Perfect Human with the use of The Vows of Chastity. He not only pushed himself to go out of his comfort zone with Dogme 95, but pushed others to as well. Van Trier has an incentive to improve and challenge filmmakers. Van Trier was also able to use the experience as a way to go back to the basics of filmmaking. The specific Vow of Chastity that enforces this is the third one saying that the camera must be handheld and able to be moved solely within the hand. It really takes the directors back in time to when filmmaking started and when it was nothing but the camera man and the camera. I can only imagine that it helped reevaluate and remember why he truly loved filmmaking to begin with. I believe this is something every filmmaker should consider doing to overall improve their work.