Lars von Trier challenges his mentor, Jørgen Leth, to remake his 1968 classic short film The Perfect Human five times, with a series of increasingly outlandish guidelines. Von Trier’s rules include, among others, that one film be shot in animation, and another in the most miserable place on earth.

Lars von Trier has never been shy to burnish his reputation as the malevolent puppet master of his protagonists’ misfortune, but never quite so literally as in this playful documentary. One of the great films about filmmaking, The Five Obstructions is a reflexive marvel of cinematic problem solving.