AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Micitype Pretty Good

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

utzutzutz Imagine a GILLIGAN'S ISLAND set in the African desert in modern times. Add people nowhere near as jaunty as the Skipper or Marianne--and enough angst to fill a German psychiatrist's office. Throw in a plot that manages to be interesting only episodically and literary parallelism that never delves deeply enough to truly satisfy. Season with a truly morose topic that's been exploited since the first world travelers found themselves very, very lost.If THE KING IS ALIVE weren't a product of the reigning czars du jour of Dogme 95, would this film be garnering as much attention? Dogme 95 is to Hollywood as Danish modern is to rococo. A byproduct of digital technology, this Scandinavian movement seeks--quite dogmatically--to strip away artificiality in film-making, by using more natural elements and returning to the essence of storytelling. PEARL HARBOR, for instance, is the Dogme Antichrist.Director/co-author Kristian Levring's saga ponders interpersonal relations and human nature when placed under the fire of a life-threatening situation. Eleven people aboard a bus riding through the Namibian sand dunes suddenly find themselves stranded in the remains of an abandoned town. An African local who does not speak their language serves as observer and narrator (whose insights are among the film's most trenchant). As the strongest heads off for a five-day walk to the nearest village, the others stay behind, surviving on dented-canned carrots and circumambulating their likely future as vulture chow. Former thespian Henry decides that this rather unappealing crew needs a diversion, and hand-writes KING LEAR from memory. He assigns roles, and the group passes many days learning lines and rehearsing, in an effort to divert their attention from the seemingly inevitable.Gradually the cast begins to lose it, and the savageries of their nature—or, William Golding might say, human nature—begin to surface. If you've ever seen LORD OF THE FLIES, you know that these things can get ugly, that being in a lifeboat situation can turn even Mother Teresa into the PMSing termagant of Calcutta.The film was shot using an international ensemble of American, English, French and South African actors, who, the Dogme dogma dictates, develop themselves and their roles quite organically. THE KING was also filmed chronologically, adding a sense of realism to the ever-increasing desperation of its characters. After up to three hand-held cameras shot in digital, results were transferred to 35mm film.The performance that compels most comes from Jennifer Jason Leigh, who plays a boho Pop Tart trying to bolster the spirits of the group in any and every way she can. Henry (David Bradley) is another finely played character, whose passion for his life's work ultimately saves the gang from utter despair. It's hard to feel too sorry for the others—cruel wives and their oafish husbands, hirsute old womanizers, sulky French intellectuals, wealthy men who have more important places to be than marooned in the Namibian desert. Beckett might hate this question, but why is this group riding a bus together through remote Africa in the first place? Life-threatening morbidity! Utter despair rendered in graphic detail! A relentlessly tedious pace! Enjoy.

dbborroughs One of the Dogme 95, this is the story of a bus load of people who end up lost in the African desert thanks to a non-functioning compass. Stranded at a deserted mining camp the group decides to put on a production of King Lear to pass the time. Tempers and passions flair as emotions become raw and exposed in the burning sun.As with all Dogme films this is low tech and in your face. The people and the emotion are the story. These are films that allow actors to show you how good they are. These are also films that can irritate the hell out of you because very often they come across as extremely contrived. This film is an example of both being a really good actors showcase and being contrived.The problem for me with this film is that at the outset I didn't care about anyone. I found the group to be a bunch of high maintenance people who are now in a situation where they can whine some more. The feeling lessened as time went on and things begin to happen, but it took awhile. I think part of the problem was that I disliked the set up, which seemed far too artificial, though certainly it's plausible.I also wasn't that keen on how some of the film was shot. Like all Dogme 95 films its shot using only hand held cameras so the film has an odd feel at times. It mimics, as some people have pointed out, the look one would get if one had shot the film using a camcorder, which lends a sense of being an actual record, but at the same time it seems careless and jarring, and less than natural, despite the fact it strives to be.I liked this film. I didn't love it. I think I would have liked it more if I had come in a few minutes late and could have thought that I missed something. It's a rather bleak film with some people I didn't care for. It's a hard film to warm up to for that reason. If you're interested in an off beat dark drama I'd give this a try, though I would suggest you weigh your decision against how you feel about any previous Dogme films you've seen.6 out of 10 (your mileage may vary)

nycritic When a bus load of tourists from all walks of life runs out of gas in the middle of an apparently endless desert the set slowly gets staged not for a tale about survival via leaving the bus and searching for help, but of staging an improv version of "King Lear" that somehow manages to insinuate itself into the characters. While events predictably turn tragic for many if not all and the situation devolves into near-complete hopelessness (made the more intense by the use of digital video which creates a hell out of sunlight and sand), there is a sense of elements left untold and aspects left unexplored in THE KING IS ALIVE, leaving a bare-essentials character study which eventually semi-collapses in on itself.An interesting experiment of a film with great improvised performances by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Janet McTeer, Bruce Davidson, and Romaine Bohringer, and one that perhaps with subsequent viewings could evolve within itself like many "experimental" films tend to do, but that at this moment remains a little too outré for the usual film-goer.

amyp3 No, it's not the worst movie I've ever seen. That honor still goes to a dreadful piece about Van Gogh materializing in present-day L.A. (Nothing I see will ever be as bad as that film.) But this is right up there in the Stinkeroo Hall of Fame.POSSIBLE SPOILEROK, we're not supposed to take the story literally? So it doesn't matter that they stand out in the desert sun learning lines, instead of taking all the necessary precautions to fight for survival? Fine. Except that the film doesn't work as some artistic metaphor on the human condition either. There is no consistent, logical relationship among the film characters themselves, or between each person and the part they're assigned to play. There's no there there.We may despise mindless action films, or predictably plotted suspense/fantasy films. But there is truly nothing worse than the person who hides an inability to create coherent themes and logical stories behind the aura of experimental art.