Lars Von Trier’s The Kingdom

Lars Von Trier’s Danish miniseries The Kingdom is one of the few television miniseries
I’ve repeatedly gone hunting for both online and off, usually when I catch a glimpse of what passes for entertainment in the mid-day on network and remember how
good serial hospital drama could be in the hands of an auteur.

Episode One

I hesitate to compare this television show to something like General Hospital, despite the melodramatic, soap opera undertone. But if so,
this is a General Hospital built on cursed earth, staffed by the criminally insane, and swiftly collapsing into it’s own dark heart.

Now, a decade after they first aired, The Kingdom and The Kingdom II are presented with English subtitles as two sets of four one-hour-ish episodes,
a little over eight hours in all.
In Denmark where the series was made
it was called Riget, the name Riget being a play on the name of the actual hospital in which the series was shot, Copenhagen’s Rigshospitalet.
Riget is also connected to the Danish word dodsriget, or realm of the dead, and as you might guess the hospital itself is haunted.
In the States the show has received some buzz among horror fans, especially since it inspired Stephen King’s ABC television show

Kingdom Hospital that lasted one 13 episode season.

Not only is there supernatural weirdness stalking the hospital floors, there are two different secret orders conspiring to their own ends,
a psychic seeking to unravel a murderous plot on the advice of restless ghosts, and constant medical and bureaucratic ineptitude threatening
to mentally unravel the newly arrived Swedish hospital director. In every episode, two dishwashers discuss all of the hospital events without ever
actually interacting with the others, a sort of psychic chorus that drives home the unabashedly nightmarish qualities of the series as a whole.

I was first exposed to this when I caught parts three, four, five, and six on IFC in 2003, and it took me forever to track down the beginning
and the ending of the Danish episodes. Finding the whole thing online was also just as difficult, as the English subtitled episodes are scattered across several torrents.

So it seemed important to bring the full series to those who’d otherwise never be able to track all of these episodes down on their own. It’s also
important to note that these episodes are shot in what could be considered Dogme-lite, as the series Riget and Riget II were directed by Von Trier in 1994 and 1997 respectively,
and he formulated the Vows of Chastity for Dogme 95 between seasons.

Thus most of the action is shot in the moment, on location, with more or less natural lighting which makes the occasional special effects that much
more believable when spirits and demons manifest during the show. All things considered, this is a show that hasn’t had nearly the exposure it deserves. Here’s the rest of the series:

Episode Two

Episode Three

Episode Four

Episode Five

Episode Six

Episode Seven

Episode Eight

Sadly, though the scripts were developed for The Kingdom III, Lars Von Trier was never able to film the final miniseries, due in part to the death of five of the actors from the show.
Stephen King did receive the scripts for the third season although it’s likely that he did not incorporate the elements into his first season, and with ABC then pulling the plug on the American version
this story seems destined to fade away leaving this viewer and the other fans out there unsatisfied and more than a little disturbed.

The scripts for the third season are out there though, and perhaps one day the story of The Kingdom will finally be complete.
Even so it would be a clever trick indeed to re-capture the magic of these first two seasons, no matter who brings the story back to the screen.