Five Obstructions

Von Trier's methods were effective because of his in depth knowledge of Jorgen Leth. He studied the techniques Leth excelled at and searched for the ones he avoided. I think this was to help Leth prove his abilities to his self. I think it was successful because sometimes I have ideas bigger then the means i have, so i toss them out, but maybe if I forced myself to come at the ideas from different directions i could have something just as successful using the things i do have. Goodness that sounds so cheesy, this movie is basically like a self help book, "believe in yourself and you can do anything" kind of stuff. I feel like Jorgen Leth saw that movie Yes Man with Jim Carrey and though "I can do that, I can say yes to everything."

The obstruction where VT forces JL to either redo the Bombay sequence or have total freedom was the most difficult. This is me being sort of hypocritical when I say having to reexamine something is way too hard, because I know earlier I said you should reexamine your ideas and blah blah blah but still after you have a final product, remaking it almost exactly the same minus the backdrop would have been so dissatisfying. On the same token, total freedom...where to start. Thats I how I felt with project 2, overwhelmed with choices.

The flexibility of the rules made each new obstruction more focused, and more inflexible. It serves as a process of refinement to reach VT's final statement that JL is totally awesome and capable of anything.

Of course this movie is inspiring, I already compared it to a self help book. As far as the way it is informing my next project, I'm not sure, I'm not sure where my next project is going, but I think it gives me the confidence to know that my next project is going to go somewhere.