The Kingdom (Danish: Riget) is a Danish absurdist supernatural horror miniseries trilogy created by Lars von Trier and Tómas Gislason. Set in the neurosurgical ward of Copenhagen's Rigshospitalet (lit. 'The National Hospital', nicknamed "Riget", lit. 'the realm' or 'the kingdom'), each episode of the show follows the hospital's eccentric staff and patients as they encounter bizarre and sometimes supernatural phenomena. The series is notable for its wry humor, its muted sepia colour scheme, and the appearance of a chorus of dishwashers with Down syndrome, who discuss in intimate detail the strange occurrences in the hospital. The main theme's song was written by von Trier himself. The first series of four episodes premiered from DR in November to December 1994, and was followed by a second series, Riget II, which aired in November 1997. A belated third and final series of five episodes, directed by von Trier and written by von Trier with Niels Vørsel, entitled Exodus, began filming in 2021 and was screened out of competition at the Venice Film Festival and at the Serial Killer festival in September 2022, and premiered on Nordic streaming platform Viaplay with the first two episodes on 9 October. The series premiered in select regions between 27 November and 25 December on streaming platform MUBI. Von Trier has credited David Lynch's 1990 television series Twin Peaks and the 1965 French miniseries Belphegor as inspirations for the series. The Kingdom itself inspired an American series, Kingdom Hospital, developed by novelist Stephen King; the American version aired on ABC between March and July 2004, and was cancelled after a single season.
Plot synopsis
Each episode of all three series opens with the same prologue, detailing how the hospital, Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, was built on the site of the "bleaching ponds", which recur in the name of the street of the hospital's official address, Blegdamsvej, although the exact significance of the reference is never explicitly discussed in the series. The show begins with the admission of a spiritualist patient, Sigrid Drusse (Kirsten Rolffes), who hears the sound of a girl crying in the elevator shaft. Upon investigation, Drusse discovers that the girl had died decades earlier, having been killed by her father to hide her illegitimacy. In order to put the spirit to rest, Drusse searches for the girl's body and ultimately finds it preserved in a specimen jar in the office of the hospital's professor of pathology, Professor Bondo (Baard Owe). Meanwhile, neurosurgeon Stig Helmer (Ernst-Hugo Järegård), a recent appointee from Sweden to the neurosurgery department, tries to cover up his responsibility for a botched operation which left a young girl in a persistent vegetative state. Pathologist Dr. Palle Bondo (Baard Owe) attempts to convince the family of a man dying from liver cancer to donate his liver to the hospital for Bondo's research. (In fact, Bondo wants it as a trophy, as it is the second largest hepatosarcoma ever recorded.) When denied, Bondo has the cancerous liver transplanted into his own body (as the patient signed an organ donor form), so that the cancer will become his personal property and can be kept within the hospital. Amongst other plotlines, a young medical student becomes attracted to the nurse in charge of the sleep research laboratory, a ghostly ambulance appears and disappears every night, a junior doctor runs a black market in medical supplies, and a neurosurgeon discovers that she was impregnated by a ghost and that the baby in her womb is developing abnormally rapidly. In every episode, two dishwashers (each with Down syndrome) in the cellar discuss the strange happenings at Riget, and Helmer screams his famous catchphrase: "Danskjävlar!" (subtitled as "Danish scum", but literally "Danish devils"). In the third series, Exodus, sleepwalker Karen Svensson finds herself at Rigshospitalet, investigating the fallout of the fatal power outage at the end of the second series. Exodus also introduces Dr. Helmer, Jr. (Mikael Persbrandt), the neurotic son of the late Stig Helmer, and a new addition to the staff of Riget. Helmer Jr. is threatened with a lawsuit after making sexual advances to a female colleague in the hospital, has to consult a Swedish lawyer (Alexander Skarsgard), son of the lawyer from season 2.
Cast
Production
Riget: Exodus (2022) In December 2020, Danmarks Radio announced that a third and final season, consisting of five episodes directed by von Trier and co-written by von Trier alongside original series co-writer Niels Vørsel, would begin filming in 2021 under the title Riget: Exodus. The same year, von Trier began showing symptoms of Parkinson's disease during an interview with Christian Lund of Louisiana Channel; afterwards, he continued to work while taking medication. Von Trier did not watch "all the old ones" before beginning work on Riget: Exodus, and had tried "to get rid of the ties from the old stuff", with the focus being on the characters. Returning cast members Ghita Nørby, Søren Pilmark, Peter Mygind, Birgitte Raaberg, Laura Christensen and Udo Kier are joined by newcomers Bodil Jørgensen, Nicolas Bro, Lars Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Mikael Persbrandt, Tuva Novotny, Ida Engvoll, Asta Kamma August, David Dencik, Alexander Skarsgard and Willem Dafoe. Von Trier had a "rotten time" filming the series, as he suffered from the effects of Parkinson's disease during the shoot, but hoped the actors "didn't notice". In September 2022, Exodus (presented as a "five hour feature-length film") screened out of competition at the 79th Venice International Film Festival, alongside Nicolas Winding Refn's miniseries Copenhagen Cowboy.
Episodes
Riget (1994)
Riget II (1997)
Riget: Exodus (2022)
Release
The four-episode first series of Riget was aired by Danish broadcaster Danmarks Radio (DR) from 24 November to 15 December 1994. The English subtitled version The Kingdom aired in the United Kingdom on BBC Two from 1 to 9 April 1997. The four-episode second series, Riget II, aired on DR between 10 and 31 October 1997. The English subtitled version The Kingdom II aired in the United Kingdom on BBC Two from 28 July to 1 September 2001. The five-episode third series, Riget: Exodus, premiered on streaming platform Viaplay on 9 October 2022.
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