The Kingdom (TV miniseries)

infobox television
show_name = The Kingdom


caption =
format = Comedy, Drama, Horror, Mystery
runtime = 1:12 (on average per episode)
creator = Lars von Trier
starring = Ernst-Hugo Järegård
Kirsten Rolffes
Holger Juul Hansen
Søren Pilmark
Ghita Nørby
Baard Owe
Birgitte Raaberg
Udo Kier
country = Denmark
network = DR
distributor = Koch-Lorber Films
first_aired = 1994
last_aired = 1997
num_episodes = 8 |

"The Kingdom" (Danish title: "Riget") is an eight-episode Danish television mini-series, created by Lars von Trier in 1994, and co-directed by Lars von Trier and Morten Arnfred. It has been edited together into a five-hour movie for distribution in the United Kingdom and United States. It is currently available on DVD in the United States from Koch-Lorber Films and on Madman Entertainment's Directors Suite label in Australia/NZ.

The series is set in the neurosurgical ward of Copenhagen's Rigshospitalet, the city and country's main hospital, nicknamed "Riget". "Riget" means "the realm" or "the kingdom" and leads one to think of "dødsriget", the realm of the dead. The show follows a number of characters, both staff and patients, as they encounter bizarre phenomena, both human and supernatural. The show is notable for its wry humor, its muted sepia colour scheme, a sort of "Dogme"-lite shooting style with added jump cuts, and the appearance of a chorus of dishwashers with Down Syndrome who discuss in intimate detail the strange occurrences in the hospital (without ever being involved in the story themselves).

Several episodes end with the Swedish neurosurgeon, Stig Helmer, on the hospital roof, looking longingly out over Øresund towards the Swedish shore line, and yelling "Danskjävlar!" ("Danish bastards!"), after helplessly witnessing another (to him) example of Danish lunacy. Director Lars von Trier appears over the end credits of every show offering enigmatic observations about the plot. The comic elements and perceived "weirdness" in the series have led to comparisons with "Twin Peaks".

The first quartet of episodes ended with numerous questions unanswered, and in 1997, the cast reassembled to produce another group of four episodes, "Riget II" ("The Kingdom II"). This series continued exactly from where the first finished, and kept the trademark sepia colouring and shaky camera-work of the first series. Von Trier continued to appear over the end credits. This second series ended with even more questions unanswered than the first, and a third series was planned. However, due to the death in 1998 of Ernst-Hugo Järegård (who played the Swedish neurosurgeon) and the subsequent deaths of Kirsten Rolffes (Mrs Drusse) and Morten Rotne Leffers who played the male dishwasher, the likelihood of a third series is now very remote. Von Trier actually wrote the third and final season, but the production was not picked up by DR. At that point, five regular cast members had died and it seemed impossible to continue the series. The abandoned scripts were sent to the producers of Stephen King's "Kingdom Hospital", but it is unclear whether they used the scripts or not.

Despite being a mini-series, it appears as one of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

Plot

The show begins with the admission of a spiritualist patient, Sigrid Drusse, who hears the sound of a girl crying in the elevator shaft. Upon investigation, Drusse discovers that the girl had died decades earlier, having been killed by her father to hide her illegitimacy. In order to put the spirit to rest, Drusse searches for the girl's body, ultimately finding it preserved in a specimen jar in the office of the hospital's professor of pathology, professor Bondo (Baard Owe)

Meanwhile, neurosurgeon Stig Helmer, a recent appointee from Sweden to the neurosurgery department, tries to cover up his responsibility for a botched operation which left a young girl in a persistent vegetative state.

Pathologist Dr. Bondo attempts to convince the family of a man dying from liver cancer to donate his liver to the hospital for research. (In fact, he wants it as a trophy, it being the 2nd largest hepatosarcoma ever recorded.) When his request is denied, Bondo has the cancerous liver transplanted into his own body (the patient having signed an organ donor form), so that the cancer will become his personal property and can be kept within the hospital.

Amongst other plotlines, a young medical student becomes attracted to the nurse in charge of the sleep research laboratory, a ghostly ambulance appears and disappears every night, a junior doctor runs a black market in medical supplies, and a neurosurgeon discovers that she was impregnated by a ghost and that her baby is developing abnormally rapidly. In every episode, two dishwashers (each with Down syndrome) in the cellar discuss the strange happenings at Riget.

Cast

Ernst-Hugo Järegård - Stig Helmer
Kirsten Rolffes - Sigrid Drusse
Holger Juul Hansen - Moesgaard
Søren Pilmark - Krogshøj
Ghita Nørby - Rigmor
Baard Owe - Bondo
Annevig Schelde Ebbe - Mary Jensen
Birgitte Raaberg - Judith
Udo Kier - Åge Krüger / Little Brother
Jens Okking - Bulder
Vita Jensen - Female dishwasher
Morten Rotne Leffers - Male dishwasher
Stellan Skarsgård - The Swedish lawyer

Episodes

"Riget"

*Day 1: "Den hvide flok" / "The Unheavenly Host"
*Day 2: "Alliancen kalder" / "Thy Kingdom Come"
*Day 3: "Et fremmed legeme" / "A Foreign Body"
*Day 4: "De levende døde" / "The Living Dead"

"Riget II"

*Day 5: "Mors in Tabula" / "Death on the Operation Table"
*Day 6: "Trækfuglene" / "Birds of Passage"
*Day 7: "Gargantua"
*Day 8: "Pandæmonium"

Stephen King's "Kingdom Hospital"

American horror writer Stephen King developed a thirteen-episode mini-series based on "Riget", under the title "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital", which was broadcast in 2004. The plot retained many of the elements of "Riget", transferring the location of the hospital to Lewiston, Maine, and placing it on the site of a mill built before the Civil War. Many of the characters derived their names from the Danish original (e.g. Sigrid Drusse became Sally Druse, Stig Helmer became Dr. Stegman). A significant difference in the American series was the introduction of the character of a talking giant anteater in the role of spirit guide/death/Anubis/Antubis.

External links

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* [http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/2008/01/30/filmtv-review-the-kingdom-1-2 Review]