The Kingdom Exodus (Night Shift)
Key Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Bodil Jørgensen, David Dencik, Lars Mikkelsen, Mikael Persbrandt, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Tuva Novotny
Director: Lars von Trier
Producer: Louise Vesth
Screenwriter: Lars von Trier, Niels Vørsel
Cinematographer: Manuel Alberto Claro
Composer: Joachim Holbek
Lars von Trier (Melancholia, MIFF 2011) revisits the wacky, disturbing world of Kingdom Hospital in his cult series’ long-awaited final chapter.
The Copenhagen healthcare institute Rigshospitalet holds dark secrets: its corridors house nightmarish oddities and malevolent supernatural forces; its operating theatres reveal criminally incompetent surgeons and rabid anti-Danish sentiment. When former patient Karen (the prolific Bodil Jørgensen) somnambulates into this bizarre setting that she first encountered on her television, she discovers that not all that much has changed since 1997 – but that a new struggle between good and evil is brewing within the hospital’s corridors.
Over 25 years after von Trier’s small-screen horror soap opera The Kingdom (MIFF 1995) amassed a cult following and further developed his reputation as a wily provocateur, Danish cinema’s enfant terrible returns to further the show’s signature mayhem. A must-see for fans of offbeat masterpieces such as David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks (MIFF 1990), The Kingdom Exodus promises stupefying shock and laughter in equal measure.
“Like nothing else that’s been on TV in the last five years … Von Trier has always been a personal filmmaker, and this ends up being one of his most confessional and revealing works.” – RogerEbert.com