MUBI is releasing a restored and remastered Blu-ray edition of Lars Von Trier’s The Kingdom Trilogy.
The trilogy set will contain The Kingdom (1994), The Kingdom II (1997), and The Kingdom Exodus (2022), created by the abrasive and controversial Von Trier who made his name with the 1994 series. It’s often compared to Twin Peaks in its surreal, otherworldly horrors.
The Kingdom Trilogy Blu-ray Details
Strange things are happening in the underbelly of a Danish hospital. The anguished spirit of a young girl can be heard crying in the elevator shafts, as a phantom ambulance hurtles through the streets of Copenhagen every night. Secret societies convene in the basement, while staff congregate in the nondescript wards, so caught up in their own petty grievances they remain oblivious to the demonic awakening set to shake the very building to its core.
When the four episodes comprising The Kingdom I aired on Danish television in 1994, von Trier had already made something of a reputation for himself at home with his Europe trilogy (1984-1991), the last film of which saw him win the Jury Prize in Cannes. But it was The Kingdom that made him a household name, not least due to his mischievously enigmatic sign-offs during the credits of each installment.
The filmmaker who would soon become synonymous with artistic provocation showed little interest in tempering his creative idiosyncrasies for the broader demographics of a television audience, breaking with the refined formalism of his earlier features for a handheld style that would anticipate the faux-documentary likes of The Office and von Trier’s own Dogme 95 manifesto. “We did all kinds of things to make it look terrible,” he said, impishly, of The Kingdom’s rust-colored 16mm cinematography, now beautifully restored in never-before-seen versions of each episode.
Von Trier went on to make notoriously provocative movies such as Antichrist, Dogville, Nymphomaniac, Melancholia, and The House that Jack Built.
The Kingdom Trilogy Blu-ray will be released on February 6, 2024. You can also stream all episodes on the MUBI site now.
