Wow! You want to see a five hour hospital drama, in Danish, shot with hand-held cameras? One that makes no sense without seeing the first five hour installment? Sign me up, dude. Danish agoraphobic genius Lars Von Trier has topped his previous installment by upping both the Udo Kier and the joke quotients. Udo (in numerous Von Trier, Fassbinder, Warhol and other films) plays both the demon baby born at the end of the first “Kingdom” and his father. The Kingdom itself is a giant hospital complex in Copenhagen that features Ambulance races, ghosts, voodoo, questionable treatments, and interns who watch snuff films to acclimate themselves to the various conditions of the human body. It’s “ER” by way of Wes Craven. Once you adjust to subtitle mode, the four episodes presented here (5-8) are a smooth ride. When the lights went down, it was 6:45pm. When they went back up, it was midnight. I was ready for episodes 9 through 12, especially as episode 8 ended with the three words most feared in television after “Aaron Spelling Presents”. They would be “To be continued…”
