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<font size="2"><p>Movie Review
<font size="4"><br>The King is Alive</font>
<br>by David Ng</font>
<p>By turns bleak and comic, Kristian Levring’s <i>The King Is Alive</i> sets out to explore human frailty with the objectivity of a scientist and the introspection of a philosopher. Posing an array of existential questions ("Is man no more than this?"), <i>The King Is Alive</i> alternates between the pretentious and the puerile (characters urinating on each other) but somehow manages to make a few coherent points about death, solitude, and our need for community. The last of the Dogme 95 signatories, Levring shot his movie according to the group’s much publicized vow of chastity: hand held camera, natural lighting and sound, etc. The use of digital video by cinematographer Jens Schlosser is a revelation. <i>The King Is Alive</i> has the texture of camcorder footage and the grandeur of an epic. At times, the camera leaps into the air, giving us aerial views that remind us how nature can be beautiful and cruel. At other times, the camera focuses on the mouth of a character as words pour out, and for a time, those lips become an expansive, arid landscape.
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