The fourth and final of the original Dogme 95 films, and the first to both be shot outside Denmark and feature non-Danish acting talent, The King is Alive is just as ambitious as its heavily hyped cinematic brethren, but like the last two (Mifune and The Idiots), it just doesn't measure up to the first (The Celebration). It does, however, come the closest. 

[Dogme, in case you've been held captive in a multiplex for the last three years, is the experimental Danish film aesthetic (created by that Dancer in the Dark madman, Lars von Trier) that, among other things, demands directors use handheld cameras and shoot their scenes sequentially while forbidding the use of artificial lighting, sound (including music) and props.]

The film begins in the North African desert (it was shot in Namibia), where a bus with ten international tourists hurtles through the barren, sandy terrain. But the onboard compass is on the fritz, and the bus has traveled several hundred miles off course before driver Moses (Vusi Kunene) notices. To make matters worse, when the bus stops to refuel, it is discovered that the giant petrol cans in the storage area are empty. The passengers now find themselves stranded in an abandoned German mining town that offers only shelter and a potentially crazy old man named Kanana (Peter Khubeke), who narrates the film in Swahili (it's subtitled – don't panic).

Aussie passenger Jack (Miles Anderson), the only experienced outdoorsman of the lot, decides to try his luck at hiking to the nearest town, which, according to Kanana, is over 150 miles away. The remaining travelers choose the houses they want to call home and have a big party their first night in the middle of nowhere. But after several days pass with no word from Jack, it becomes clear the vacationers might be in for an extended stay. They survive on canned carrots abandoned by the Germans and dew (as in condensation, not Mountain). Kind of makes the soupy rice from the Kucha tribe sound pretty good, huh? 

If you were stranded in an abandoned town, staging a production of King Lear would probably be the furthest thing from your mind, but that's just what Henry (David Bradley) decides the group should do to take their minds off their potentially grave predicament. He knows Lear by heart and begins to handwrite parts for his fellow castaways. The play, however, is merely the catalyst for all of the wanton sex acts and post-coital jealousy you'd expect in such a tiny community. Envy and lust run unchecked among the group of seemingly self-destructive men, leaving the women in a rare leadership role. Lear, at least according to strandee Liz (Janet McTeer, Tumbleweeds), is the perfect play to produce because "nobody has to fall in love, and everybody gets to die in the end." 

This isn't the breathtaking desert we saw in The English Patient – it looks like it could eat you alive when the sun goes down (in fact, if this was a Hollywood film, something would probably be stalking them once it got dark). Although The King is full of stark images and vivid colors, it looks its best at night, when the group is gathered around their fire Director Kristian Levring, who co-wrote the film with Mifune's Anders Thomas Jensen, and his digital camera catch every flaw on the face of each actor's weather-worn skin. It's as gritty as the Mexican portion of Traffic, but with more color than yellow. There also seems to be more editing than the previous Dogme films. 

You could think of The King as a combination of The Blair Witch Project and Survivor targeted toward a highbrow arthouse audience instead of the teeming, unwashed masses. The film reminded me of so many other things – Cast Away, The Lord of the Flies, Hitchcock's Lifeboat, Apocalypse Now – that it's easy to think The King will follow one of their trajectories, but it really doesn't. 

The King was shot in the summer of 1999 and wrapped just a few days before brilliant character actor Brion James, best known for his work in Blade Runner, died of a heart attack. It's ironic that his character is the first of the film's passengers to experience any type of physical ailment. Although the acting here is more than solid, Jennifer Jason Leigh (eXistenZ) and beautiful French actress Romane Bohringer are the standouts.

1:49 –

for sexuality (nudity) and language