Hidden Flick: The Wunderkind Kingdom

Whereas Farrell plays his role like a grownup child who somehow stumbled his way into mid-adulthood without a drip of common sense or social grace, his mentor, played by the esteemed Gleeson, is wise, warm and cultured, and appears to have soaked up all of life, and yet, yet…he finds the pearl of knowledge, and gently escorts his young, beleaguered prodigy around the ancient medieval city like a last tour by Aristotle shepherding Alexander. Their scenes together shape the film’s essence, and mold it into a timeless gem where man’s preoccupation with doing something/anything at all times, are persistently at odds with the beauty which surrounds one on a daily basis in a silent way.

Written and directed by Martin McDonagh, each character is fully-fleshed out, and every scene—and many are quiet slices of life with seemingly inconsequential details that inevitably add up to much, much more—appears to be dripped in so much intense energy that one is impressed with how much McDonagh touches upon the human condition while essentially making the viewer care deeply about what amounts to two murderers plying their trade in a wicked and insane world.

Farrell is fucking brilliant. When he isn’t hitting some rude Canadian tourist who has insulted him, making out with a Belgium chick—played with subtle mystique by Clémence Poésy—who first wants to rob his own tourist-y ass, and then switches gears after accessing his high charm factor, instead, wanting to fuck his brains out, or completely and mercilessly at first demoralizing a dwarf American actor making a film in Belgium, and then befriends the height-challenged chap, who is also played in a beautiful way by veteran actor, Jordan Prentice, Farrell is quite likeable in a way that defies moralistic logic. The man is top drawer, and usually is if given the space in a well-scripted film. But his elder, played, as mentioned, by the veteran Irish actor Brendan Gleeson, is a whole different kettle of fish, and his scenes resonate with a rich afterglow of truth and honesty that also turn morals and logic and the meaning of life inside and out until they dwell in their own universe. Wicked yet logical, Ralph Fiennes completes the acting banquet with a performance that is hard to define within sane parameters. His sharp words are flattened until his often venomous retorts spew out quickly, on point, and ready to pounce down your throat if necessary.

Wicked insanity…wandering, always wandering down the halls through the hidden catacombs of these theatres of the mind, trailing off from Belgium, and back to Denmark, and back into the rooms from whence we came, old ladies from this century, appear as if they are from some far off place, and some mental case watches deranged undead mutants eating his living flesh, while the doctor, with perfect bedside manner, casually suggests, “Just imagine something pleasant.” And so he does—the universe inside and out—as we slide into the next edition, a concluding glance at The Kingdom, and the final four hours of the lengthy two-part Danish television series created by Lars von Trier.

Randy Ray

Season 4* (in progress):

Trapped in Time–Part II > Being Jeremy Davies > Carouselambra > Your Time Is Gonna Come > 50# > Trapped in Space–Part I > The Wilson Kingdom > The Werckmeister Kingdom > The Wunderkind Kingdom@ > Trapped in Space–Part II (next edition) >

* – fully-segued; teases of future editions dropped into prior editions, and the mindless easter eggs ricochet back to the Mothership in the opening paragraph of each edition

# – Hidden Flick mashup which contains excerpts from all four seasons

@ – by request from a sign held by a tall guy in the front row

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