Solipsistic Update

One year ago today, the Solipsist lamented his unfulfilled longing for additional episodes of Lars Von Trier's epic haunted-hospital drama, The Kingdom ("Kingdom Come Back," 8/23/10).  We thought we'd update you on our progress.

Last September, we traveled to Denmark to meet with Mr. Von Trier.  Upon arriving at his house, Mrs. Von Trier (his mom) told us that Lars was busy doing homework and couldn't come out to play with us. We explained that we represented a major American blog and wanted not to play with Lars but to interview him about his laxness in completing additional episodes of "The Kingdom."  In that case, she told us, Lars was busy doing homework and couldn't come out to play with us.

Sigh.

We waited outside for several hours, catching a nasty case of rubella, which we had always thought was a kind of cake.  Finally, Lars came out, dressed in a tuxedo, as he was about to accept an award from some international film collective.  When we introduced ourselves, though, Lars quickly ripped off his tuxedo jacket and invited us out for a waffle dinner.  Over waffles, we discussed "The Kingdom."

"Lars," we began.

"Please, call me Mr. Von Trier."

"Oh.  OK.  So. . ..hey, is it 'Von TRY-er' or 'Von TREER'?"

"It's 'Von Trier.'"

"Uh, look, this is a transcript, so people can't hear you, so could you speak as if you were typing?"

"Oh, certainly, it's 'Von TREER.'"

"Great.  So, Lars, what's up with 'The Kingdom'?  Why don't you make more episodes?"

"Are you kidding?  I made that as a joke.  I'm far too busy doing important, blockbuster films like 'Dogville.'"

"We didn't see that one."

"No kidding."

"Look, we have, uh. . .  thirty-seven shiny American dollars.  Would THAT convince you to make additional episiodes?"

Eventually, we appealed to Lars' competitive instincts, and challenged him to a game of chess.  If we won, he would make more episodes of "The Kingdom."  If he won, he would get to kick us in the throat--once--and make fun of our shoes.  We were doing great in the game, until we tried to jump his horse with our pointy guy, which is when we realized that we had been thinking of checkers.

Our Adam's Apple has recently grown back, and we still don't think our shoes look that bad.  Sad to say, though, we will not see any new episodes of "The Kingdom" any time soon.