In treatment: The five obstructions

The Five Obstructions is a critically acclaimed cinematic game between Danish auteurs Lars von Trier and Jørgen Leth, staged as the confrontation of two distinct film-making philosophies: Leth’s observational approach and von Trier’s domineering approach. The encounter enables an insight into the director’s respective methods of attending to human psychology, as well as their status as auteurs, where Leth’s remote ‘visionary’ persona is in stark contrast to von Trier’s visible and self reflexive alter ego. Produced under the rubric of the Dogumentary code that sought to bring Dogma’s particular ‘authenticity’ to the mode of documentary, von Trier identifies the film as a ‘Help Jørgen Leth Project’ that aims to bring Leth out of himself. This article takes up the specifically therapeutic dynamic suggested here as a way of discussing how – for both directors – The Five Obstructions collapses selfrevelation with a staging of self.