The Perfect Human

In his cult mockumentary The Perfect Human, acclaimed Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth (1937–2025) presents an ideal male and female couple: perfectly proportioned and immaculately dressed, they inhabit a white, sterile, seemingly infinite space. Leth himself introduces the pair—played by actors—and comments on them in a dry, pseudo-scientific tone. With clinical precision, the camera registers every detail and every movement. The emotionless voice directs the viewer’s gaze (“Look, the perfect human moving in a room”)—first at each of them separately and then together. The two people appear devoid of any emotion; these seemingly soulless prototypes perform everyday actions as if they were the product of some rigorous optimization process.

This 1968 short film is Leth’s most celebrated work. It later formed the basis for the documentary The Five Obstructions (2003), in which fellow Dane Lars von Trier, a great admirer of Leth, challenges the master filmmaker to remake his “perfect film” five times, each time under different constraints.