The King is Alive-- A film by Kristian Levring 


The following is a link to a theatrical trailer of the film, The King is Alive. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1y2Ue5Vd98


The King is Alive is a film about a group of people who find themselves stranded in a desert after their bus takes a wrong turn and runs out of gas. Whilst trying to survive, the stranded group of people decide to put on a reproduction of William Shakespeare's King Lear in hopes of taking their minds off of their situation. The film focuses a great deal on dark human emotions. It seems as though every character has a "skeleton in the closet," if you will. Each character begins to change as they slowly become more aware that the possibility of never being rescued is a great one.

The film opens with the dogma 95 certificate/manifesto letting the viewer know that the film will abide by the rules set up by the framers of the dogma 95 movement. As with the previous film that I had posted about (Kira's Reason), the camera was often shaky, the film was clearly 35 mm, and so on. That which I appreciate the most about dogma films is that they are incredibly raw and basic. The framers of the dogma 95 movement recognized that mainstream film sought to "buy" their audience with over-the-top special effects and dramatic, non-diagetic musical scores. I often find myself asking, "Do I like this movie because it is aesthetically good, or am I more captivated by the music and the effects?" This could be something that the framers of the dogma movement thought themselves. Anyone can make a film that will sell if they have enough money in their budget (I use the term "anyone" loosely). Dogme seeks to break down film into it's purest forms; adjusting its focus away from flashy effects and moving towards camera work, cinematography, and storytelling. When this is done, the audience receives a better, more in-depth insight into the story and the characters.

This is why we are able to get such a deep, emotional image of the characters in this film. Not only are we seeing these films at their simplest, most basic form, but we are also seeing humanity in a basic form. We are gaining an awareness of what makes a character who they are and what makes them behave the way that they behave. The King is Alive captures this idea beautifully. We are introduced to characters, who we follow throughout the film, who we watch struggle for survival, and who we can relate to.

Aesthetically, there are a few choices that the director made that I would like to shed some light on. Throughout the film the camera was shaky. Normally, I would write this off as just being a convention of dogma films (tripods are not allowed; rule 3). For this film however, I feel as though the camera was shaky for a reason, which I will explain below. Something else that I noticed was that the director chose to use a lot of jump-cuts; quickly jumping sporadically from shot to shot. Often, these shots were unfocused during the quick jumps. I think both of the things that I noticed signified the same emotion. When I thought about what they could mean I just kept thinking about how chaotic the shots were and how confusing they were. Perhaps that's how the filmmaker wanted the movie to feel; chaotic and confusing. This could be because this was how the characters felt in the film.

Overall, I enjoyed The King is Alive. It was a very dark film about survival and coping with tragedy. It is a great representation of the goal that the creators of the dogme movement wanted to strive towards.