The Idiots (1998) User Reviews

"The Idiots" may be von Trier's best

[garveytv · 8/10 · 22 November 2001]

I have to admit I completely missed the mini-release of Lars von Trier's "The Idiots" last year - I even missed the release of the video! But I spotted it on the shelf last night, looking for something spiky to tide me over Thanksgiving, and I have to admit - it really did the job! This may be von Trier's best film, one in which he pretty much sheds the ponderous sexual melodrama that marred "Breaking the Waves" and "Dancer in the Dark".

Of course, be warned - this is EURO independent cinema, not American, which means it has a GENUINE edge - it's hardcore, in more ways than one. If your idea of "edgy" or "dangerous" is "Being John Malkovich" or "Boys Don't Cry", then you should probably avoid the Dogma-driven "The Idiots", in which full-frontal nudity is de rigeur (and on-camera urination and sexual penetration occur as well).

But if you want a funny, dirty, smart, irritating, and even infuriating satire of both the bourgeoisie and the bohemians who oppose it, then "The Idiots" is for you. von Trier has assembled a furiously talented cast of unknowns to spin this tale of a Danish commune that pretends - to the horror of the middle class masses that surround it - to be a private institution for "retards" and "spastics".

"The Idiots" travel around town in their van, invading bourgeois precincts like restaurants and swimming pools, and then generally shaking things up; shedding all physical dignity, they begin drooling, picking their noses, disrobing, peeing, and messing with the personal space of the appalled citizenry.

This is alternately funny, disgusting, and angering - but where the film becomes great is in its dissection of the bohemian mini-society that's perpetrating the big hoax. Led by the bitterly charismatic Stoffer, the rag-tag bunch is populated by the usual sexual misfits, mainstream drop-outs and screwed-up idealists, who are in complete denial of the personal failures that are driving their participation in the collective. The resulting scenes are instantly recognizable to anyone (like me) who's spent lengths of time in Bohemia - the irrational drift of the group's politics, the silly, self-serious conversations, the bickerings and territorial squabbles - in short, the bourgeois life writ small, only with more sex. (And believe me, it's a lot to pay for only a little more sex.)

For me, the best scenes lay in the skewering of the group itself. The scene in which one group member returns to "real life", to attend a high-powered meeting at his advertising agency, only to discover his "client" is actually one of the group's own spastics, is priceless. This is then topped by a viciously hilarious sequence in which one young guy imposes himself on a group of scary, tattooed bikers, drooling and moaning away. The bikers unexpectedly show fellow feeling, decide he must have to pee, lead him to the john, pull down his pants, and even aim his penis into the urinal, all as the poor kid desperately tries to urinate and stay in character. I'm not sure I've EVER laughed so hard.

The movie ends on a typically uncompromising note. The most enigmatic (and most recent) member of "The Idiots" provides the biggest surprise. When the test of "going native" rolls around - Stoffer challenges his followers to take their life style back into the "real world" - Karen rises to the challenge, and returns to a family that we always half-assumed rejected her. Only it turns out that SHE rejected THEM - after the death of her baby son, she didn't even go to the funeral - she just opted out of the tragedy completely. The scene in which she returns to her grieving, stone-cold husband and relatives, and then begins to twitch and drool, is nothing short of unbelievable. We can see in their chill why she left them - but we can also see how horrifying her behavior is in the context of insurmountable personal grief. The movie ends with a slap and a departure - hopelessly, in a way. There's no compromise between these two worlds - even if both are at bottom broken.

(Btw, the video I saw actually had little black boxes blocking out the male - and sometimes the female - genitalia. Look for the scene in which the little black box gets longer - it's a hoot all by itself!)

Mediocre film, childish manifesto

[crisberg · 6/10 · 25 November 1998]

What can you expect from a film based on a childish manifesto like Dogma 95? Bad lighting, bad acting (with a couple of notable exceptions) and a feeling that some of the scenes (like the orgy) were introduced only to prove that the Dogma was being obeyed...

The story itself (a group of people pretending to be mentally retarded and interacting with the "normal" world, with each other and with themselves) is sometimes intriguing and certainly will not leave any spectator undisturbed, but it is not enough to make this piece remarkable.

Only to be seen as a curiosity...

Group dynamics

[diand_ · 7/10 · 15 July 2005]

Idioterne / The idiots has great similarity to Breaking the waves and Dancer in the dark: A naïve girl falls victim to the circumstances and pays too high a price. Nearly all von Trier's movies are about idealism, and so is this one. Stoffer as the group leader at first seems the binding factor, but as all others have different reasons than idealism to enter the group he establishes his leadership with increasing emphasis on psychological force and less on convincing arguments. As all members have a desire to stay in the group (again for different reasons) he then demands that they go to extreme lengths to show their commitment to the cause and indirectly to him. Hence the orgy scene (as viewers we end up with more seating comfort in the cinema after that). Then all thresholds are passed; the outsider (father) steps in to bring them back to reality and diminish their renewed established group bond. Stoffer then demands the ultimate sacrifice. Only the naïve Karen is able to be an idiot in real life in one of the most painful and harrowing scenes ever put on screen.

It feels somewhat rushed in writing and making which is odd because von Trier is known as a perfectionist. All his directing efforts seem to be put here in the actors so there is good acting across the board. The Dogme-rules only contribute to greater intensity. Von Trier interviews the actors in the movie so there is a parallel between the movie's group dynamics and the actor's group dynamics.

Breaking the waves was in my opinion overlong. Dancer in the dark was placed too much in the fantasy screen world and had therefore less dramatic impact. From the Golden Hearts-trilogy I personally like this the most.

It takes a Dane

[ekkir · 27 April 2002]

As a Dane it may be easier to see where Lars Von Trier is coming from with this social criticism (satire of social criticism!) movie.

First of all he comes from a country that prides itself in two traditions:

1. a state that takes care of and cares for everyone

2. a country that has a long tradition of social-criticism in literature and movies

For more than ten years it seemed that every big film project in Denmark had a social agenda...That was probably the only way to get financial support for your film project - which was most of the time, if not all of the time - supplied by the state.

This film is poking fun - primarily - at this social criticism tradition, while it also renews it.

But how much should we take seriously - Lars Von Trier would probably laugh at anyone, who takes this movie at face value - as a bona fide social criticism (which it is not!) and - of course - it fails as traditional "social criticism", just look at it - this is not a film like Pelle the Conquerer, there are no drunken, heavy-set men seducing their underage nieces and abusing the working man sadistically.

In short this movie wasn't meant to succeed in the genre in a traditional sense.

It has a more profound agenda - I have a hard time putting words to it, because what the movie says is so very Danish. Certain scenes are simply great: When they visit the factory and "the idiots" are allowed to turn the machines on and off...I can't explain why that is so intensely funny, but I'm pretty sure it's a Danish thing.

This film is funny, sad, sentimental, wonderfully-acted... It comments on a social-democratic tradition and state that embraces you for better and for worse...It also talks about capitalism in this system...Maybe it's really all about the compromise inherent in a social-democratic tradition existing parallel with a capitalist system. Such a compromise could be viewed as hypocrisy from a philosophical standpoint.

Central to this movie is the theme of honesty and sincerity...And all the while you don't want to take it too seriously, because you have a feeling that the director isn't all that serious about it himself...

In short I find the movie and it's intention irresistibly confusing.

Truly an crude idiotic movie.

[ironhorse_iv · 6/10 · 1 April 2013]

Movie such as this is one of the reasons I can't stand any of the depressing melodrama for the sake of depressing melodrama that's over-saturating every medium on the planet these days. Enough of these bad things happen in real life, we don't need everything we watch nor read or listen to; to get away from normal life to be completely centered around the exact thing we're trying to take our minds off of. Director by King Dogma Attitude Lars Von Trier, 'the Idiots' is his try to make a film in compliance with the Dogme '95 Manifesto film making movement which he started. He fails to live up to it. What is the Dogme'95 Manifesto? Dogme '95 also known as Dogme#2 were rules to create filmmaking based on the traditional values of story, acting, theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology following close to a Vow of Chastity rule. Like a whore in a nun's church, Lars broke the rules in this movie by bringing a prop onto the set and used special lighting. Von Trier also used background music (Le Cygne by Camille Saint-Saëns) in the film. The whole Dogme '95 movement collapse with this movie. Due to trying to live up to the Vows, the movie suffers from errors on screen such as boom mics or cameraman getting into the shots. The idiots also marks the second film in von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy, which includes Breaking the Waves (1996) and Dancer in the Dark (2000) which had a woman put into wickedness actions. The woman in this one is Karen (Bodil Jørgensen) who is taken some interest in an anti-bourgeois group, leaded by Stoffer (Jens Albinus), whom spend their time acting like mentally disabled people in public to challenge the establishment through provocation. The idiots start to see that with they can get away with a lot with playing dumb, and see a romantic ideal of being disability gives until reality hit them hard. The movie is spoken in Danish, but I can't understand the message they are trying to say with this film. I can't decide if that dogma filmmaking method is admirable or intentionally hamstringing itself arbitrarily. The characters are unlikeable. The mocking of Down syndrome is rude. Then there is the pointless gangbang scene. That part of the film was pure hardcore porn. I know Lars Von Trier lived in nudist commune environment and yes, I know Danish has more lax attitude towards nudity and sex than the US apparently has by comparison, but honestly what was the point of that scene? It felt out of place. I felt that the Gruppeknald scene was just there to feed Lars Von Tier's pervert ego. Trine Michelsen is only in the movie for this scene since she is a porn star. Not a big porn star, but more importantly she is the daughter of the most influential Danish movie critic at the time Ole Michelsen. Ole Michelsen is famous for saying he reviews all types of movies except the type his daughter stars in. Lars von Trier makes a cameo in his movie in exactly just for this scene, by having Ole Michelsen was forced to review a movie that has the director sleeping with his daughter. That's pretty crude. For me, the idea that if someone is broken. I should be able to sympathize with their horrible behavior that demeans a group human beings that are already in an oppressed position to begin with is just no. That ending did nothing for me. I didn't feel sorry for any of them at all. This is not an art for art sakes, or whatever they made up to sound sophisticated movie, it's Z Grade exploitation either desperately trying or pretending to have a meaning. Mange tak, Lars. You made a pretty horrible movie.

Successful experiment.

[Boba_Fett1138 · 7/10 · 9 June 2006]

"Idioterne" is a good and enjoyable to watch Dogma movie. The style (or better said; the lack of style) and storytelling are unique and help to make "Idioterne" a one of a kind movie experience. Just like the story in the movie; it's a successful experiment.

As a sort of a social experiment, a group of people decides to release the 'idiot' in themselves to see how the environments responds to them. Sounds like good enough material to make a hilarious comedy with but "Idioterne" never goes over-the-top and always retains a sort of realistic feeling. The movie is made in documentary style with some mixed results as a direct result of this. For most part the movie is realistic and it has an improvised feeling over it but some of the sequences are obviously planned and acted out. In those sequences it becomes painfully obvious that the actors in this movie aren't really first-rate. It makes those sequence feel forced and ridiculous. Those sequences are in contrast with the rest of the movie its style and overall feeling.

Yet the movie remains perfectly good to watch. It never becomes really great or hilarious but the movie is simply perfectly entertaining to watch nevertheless.

The movie has some interesting sequences and confrontations in it that all helps to make this movie quite a memorable one. It's a movie that confronts at times and makes us as viewers think about how we would respond and act if we were in one of the situations as portrayed in the movie.

For fans of Dogma this is an absolute must-see. It has everything in it what makes Dogma movies so great. It's perhaps not the best Dogma movie but it certainly is one of the most enjoyable- and more light to watch ones.

7/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Great

[zetes · 9/10 · 30 June 2000]

While not quite at the same level as _Breaking the Waves_, the only other Lars von Trier I have seen (his films are quite hard to come by in Midwestern American video stores, you understand), _The Idiots_ is still a great film, and, in some ways, is just as important.

I have to comment on a lot of the reviews I've seen for this movie. A lot of viewers judge the film by the theories and views about the group's existence (particularly the view spoken by the most outspoken of the Idiots, Stoffer). This is surely not the way von Trier meant his audience to take the film. If you paid any attention to the film, you'll notice that the Idiots' lifestyle is never glamorized. Everyone's experience in the group ends in embarrassment and despair. You should also note that none of the Idiots has the same opinion of why they like to act the idiot. Stoffer might say that they do it to upset the bourgeosie (I don't pretend to know how to spell that word), but the next person might be doing it just to play around. The artist (whose name escapes me at the moment) is doing it to become a better artist, and the doctor is doing it almost for experiment. There is never a reason for the groups' existence that the entire group agrees upon. This is extremely important for understanding this film.

The way _The Idiots_ particularly hit me was in the characterizations. The actors are so great in this film that they hit the level of: "Is this really acting, or is it just being?" von Trier hit the same level in _Breaking the Waves_. These actors were so good, their characters just jumped out of the script. There are many characters, and only a few of them are characterized in the script extensively. Stoffer, although not the main character, is the most prominent character in the script. Many of the characters don't have all that many lines or screen time, but I felt I knew them all well.

I also appreciated that it actually entertained me. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it so much. It is often very, very funny (if offensive). It also gripped me emotionally. I did not particularly comprehend the ending's meaning, but it left me with a powerful emotion. I did have tears in my eyes when I left the theater, and a lot of thoughts in my head. When a man outside the theater stopped me to ask me how I liked it, my lips and my brain were too dry to actually answer anything but, "I liked it. I liked it a lot." 9/10

Mediocre at best

[keithbolton · 6/10 · 3 March 2019]

Having seen and been blown away by the integrity, power, humour and intelligence of Festen (the first Dogme film by Thomas Winterberg), I was looking forward to see how the 'super star' of the genre would perform. Well, the contrast could not have been wider. Despite the constraints of the manifesto, Feston is well filmed, directed and acted and shows how the principle of the manifesto are not a bar to creating a quality work of art. The Idiots by contrast feels very much to be a student project, where the ego of the director is the most important thing on show, as he very obviously sticks to fingers up to societal norms like a precocious teenagers first rails against his parents. However. approaching the year 2000, sex as a means to shock is pretty passe and whilst the use of disability/mental health is more brave it is a pretty shallow attempt with the poor quality of the general film making detracting from any points that might have been made (even if those points are pretty thin, and again feel like the naive fumblings of an undergraduate rather than a progressive experimental film maker with an advanced social conscience). Interesting as a point in history in an influential movement but adds very little cinematically.

One of Von Trier's best

[JohnSeal · 9/10 · 5 May 2001]

This misunderstood and wildly underappreciated film is up there with Riget and Zentropa in the Von Trier canon, and in my opinion better than Breaking the Waves. Critics focussed on the film's perceived cruel attitude towards the mentally handicapped. Idioterne is actually a very personal film about revolution, healing and Danish society's attitude towards the 'retarded'. It is an incredibly brave and moving film that will have you dabbing your eyes by the end.

Whoever decided that American filmgoers could not be exposed to the sight of penises, however, needs to lose their job. The absurdity of being exposed to full frontal female nudity--while being protected by big black floating boxes whenever a John Thomas is on screen--is an outrage. Did someone REALLY think this film would break through at the box office if these appendages were obscured? Were they concerned that Joe Six Pack was going to take the wife and kids to that new movie by that famed Danish director that's such a big hit with the arthouse crowd? The mind boggles.

Dare to laugh

[rooee · 6/10 · 12 April 2010]

It's easy to confuse the adjectives "controversial" and "thought-provoking". The difference is that the former is a concept manufactured by the media and the latter is the raison d'etre of film-makers like Lars von Trier. Ostensibly this is a film about a group of people pretending to have cerebral palsy. But obviously that's not what it's really about; and I think that only those without the inclination to seek one of many possible meanings would label it "controversial" on this basis. It's classic knee-jerk.

The Idiots is a challenging indictment of middle-class hypocrisies and an enthralling deconstruction of the bohemian ideal.

Early in the film the question keeps being asked: Why is what we're doing wrong? "Because you're poking fun." But who really comes out of the narrative looking idiotic? The stuttering patio-owner, fearful of a potential insurance claim? Josephine's father, who tears his weeping daughter away from her friends? Rarely it's The Idiots themselves, whose motivations are subtly sketched out as Stoffer's commune collapses around him.

Stoffer himself is "anti-middle-class", suggesting he's simply afraid of growing up. There's the doctor, constantly writing notes, who may be treating the whole affair as some kind of social experiment. There's the marketing man, using the commune as an escape from the superficiality of his truly idiotic occupation. And there's Karen, our silent observer, whose own reasons for falling in love with The Idiots comes to flatten us in the final reel. This leads to a gripe: certain characters remain nothing MORE than sketches. I would have liked to see von Trier eschew some of the social confrontation scenes in favour of further narrative episodes.

Some scenes - such as the door-to-door Christmas decoration sale, or the house-buyers' tour - may come across as crass and cruel, but they're fascinating insofar as they present the hypocrisies that lie in the heart of us all.

Perhaps the impact of The Idiots' public "spassing" is softened somewhat in these post-Borat/Bruno days. But von Trier is a trickier customer than Baron Cohen. As such, we laugh aloud, but we're never quite sure of who we're laughing - or, indeed, if we should be laughing at all. Watch this, and then watch how all other films seem quaint by comparison.

An embarrassment to the art of film-making

[neil_mc · 1/10 · 28 May 2003]

Where do you start on this, there is just a sense that anything goes just because we label a film as 'new wave' or 'experimental cinema'. It is an embarrassment that this film attempts to even class itself as one of those.

In reality, this film should adhere to the Dogme 95 manifesto that it was made under. But looking at those rules, it clearly breaks a number of them. The 'Vow of Chastity' states that the "sound may never be produced apart from the images", but this is definitely not the case on a number of occasions. Also(according to Dogme), "the director must not be credited". So why is it then that Mr von Trier is credited as director on everything and everywhere we see this film. I mean if you want to be clever and write up a manifesto, at least lets stick to the rules. Looking at the DVD, his name and all of the actors are credited when really they shouldn't be. They shouldn't even be acknowledged on this website as having specific 'jobs' in the film. In all honesty there should just be one long list of names.

Classing a film as 'new wave' or 'experimental' just seems to be a marketing ploy i.e. a bandwagon for everybody to jump on. Looking at the IMDb rating and some of the comments, lots of people have done just that.

With this film it just seems to be a case of 'I know, we'll go into public places and pretend to be handicapped, we'll try to be as controversial as possible and get somebody with a shaky hand to film it all with a hand held digital camera. Then we'll edit it together in a haphazard fashion and say we're rebelling against continuity'. The film doesn't work, the ideas are weak and why you even need a director for this catastrophe is still open to question.

Oh how I cheered when our lead lady Karen was slapped hard across the face in the final scene. It should have come earlier, but all the same it was well delivered and of course thoroughly deserved.

I warn people, do not try to look for things that aren't there. This isn't a good film - it's a bad documentary. 0/10

A stone in Your Shoe

[dana_jones_23 · 9/10 · 17 February 2005]

In Epidemic, one of his previous films, Lars von Trier noted that "a film must be like a stone in the shoe". Eleven years after Epidemic, Lars von Trier is famous, his budgets grew larger and so do the stones he puts in the spectators shoes. No, reality is never what you think it is. It stops moving when you expect it to rush, and than it rushes in a way that makes you dizzy. People that you considered to be serious collapse when it comes to testing their intentions in reality, and people that you never took a note of will prove to be the real heroes of life. At the same time Lars von Trier and his excellent actor ensemble try to explain why (non violent) social experiments always fail, in spite of what we learn at school and watch on TV. They fail for three main reasons. First, the intentions of the hardcore of every movement of this kind are different that the ones they declare on. Second, the few who take a social project seriously will remain outside the hardcore group in a lonely, non-influential position. And third: the external conditions for running an experiment of this kind are such, that it's impact is limited up front to zero, often without the acting persons realize it. A brilliant movie of a brilliant filmmaker, who revolutionized the cinema in the last generation. A must for every thinking person.

Somewhat Disturbing

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 18 November 2015]

A seemingly anti-bourgeois group of adults spend their time seeking their "inner idiot" to release their inhibitions. They do so by behaving in public as if they were developmentally disabled.

I guess this film is highly regarded and is listed in the 1001 Films to See Before You Die. I have seen more than 6000 films, and I am not at all sure I would have put this one on that list. Although I understand that is the point, it looks very amateur at times and this hurts the experience (although I warmed up to it). Generally speaking I am a fan of Lars von Trier, but this one just seemed wrong.

It was like Sean Penn mixed with "The Ringer" with some mild pornography mixed in. It is not often you see erections and full sexual intercourse in a mainstream film... although I guess at the time this came out, von Trier may not have been seen as mainstream.

Deeply disrespectful

[Sal-30 · 1/10 · 8 July 1999]

As I left the theatre at the end of "Idioterne", a strong rage feeling came to me! Lars von Trier (who had directed the extremely great "Breaking The Waves") made an awful job by directing this film. Ok, the acting is good. But the scenes are too much strong and disrespectul. I can imagine a person who has this kind of problem in home... The explicit sex scene is nasty, dirty and boring. The other nude scenes, and also the entire film, are boring AND tedious. The film smells like crap! Apologise my English, everyone. But that´s what this terrible film deserves!

As important, in a cinematic sense, as À bout de soufflé.

[ThreeSadTigers · 29 December 2007]

Most people are drawn to this film simply because of the chic (though quickly diminishing) appeal of the Dogme 95 manifesto, and through the curiosity factor raised by the film's brief, though certainly explicit, mid-narrative gang-bang. I think this is a bit of a shame, because beneath the façade of daring social satire and beyond the conceptual restrictions of the Dogme movement, there is a touching and affecting story here, which, in terms of emotional relevance and characterisation, is easily as endearing and beautifully realised as the bleak portrayals found in von Trier's other films, Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark. It is important to note also, that The Idiots forms something of a loose trilogy with the two films aforementioned, in which von Trier, inspired by an old Danish children's book, set out to make three films that each dealt with a naïve and almost childlike female protagonist, who, during the course of the film, sacrifices absolutely everything that she had at the beginning of the story, in order to undergo a kind of emotional and spiritual transcendence at the end.

As with many of von Trier's more recent films, the plot is deceptively simple... in the first scene (a disorienting mish-mash of fly-on-the-wall, candid camera and Luis Buñuel) we are introduced to the character of Karen, a meek and pensive woman, who, being unable to afford the more expensive items at a fancy upper-class restaurant, is chastised by the waiter and frowned upon by the curious clientele. At the far end of the restaurant we find a young carer, with two grown-up, mentally handicapped men. When one of the men takes hold of Karen's hand, our shy protagonist kindly agrees to help the young man out to the car. However, once there, the young man still refuses to let go, and the group, with Karen quietly in tow, eventually meet up with another group and embark upon a bizarre and shambolic tour of an insulation factory. These first ten minutes of the film (incorporating both the scene at the restaurant and the scene at the factory) are the most disarming, with von Trier throwing the audience into Karen's subjective perspective, and forcing us, as it were, to spend time with these people in order to understand and, to some extent, better appreciate the central ideology of the film.

By the time we discover that the idiots are "faking it" as part of some ill informed social experiment, we are forced, much like Karen, to take sides and make the decision... are we willing to spend another two hours in the company of these idiots? The rest of the film unfolds in a similarly episodic, fly-on-the-wall style, as the idiots try to get one over on the bourgeoisie by "spassing-out" in public places (restaurants, swimming pools, parks, bars and suburban estates) or unwinding at the posh, upper-class house of their self-elected leader, Stoffer. As the group mentality is pushed further and relationships strained, we watch Karen come to terms with the group and the sense of emotional liberation connected to the "inner-idiot". Whereas the other members of the group are privileged, arrogant and self-centred, Karen remains detached, though simultaneously in awe of the way these characters have seemingly cast off the problems of the everyday world and thus, as a result of this, it is Karen who remains the only member of the group willing to take her "spassing" to the next emotional level come the film's agonising closing moments.

For me, it is the character of Karen that really makes the film work, and I feel saddened by the fact that the previous commentators have made little to no reference of her or the actress who portrays her. Here, Bodil Jørgensen gives a brave performance that is certainly less showy than some of the other characterisations (particularly Stoffer, Jeppe, Josephine, Axel and Katrine), creating a believable character who, throughout the course of the film, reveals subtle emotional layers that allude to some unspoken sense of personal tragedy that is only really discussed towards the end of the film. The final scene of the picture, for me, is one of the most important scenes of the film (much more important than the majority of confrontational scenes that became the principal talking points), with Karen allowing her emotions to completely consume her, and thus, illustrating the allure of "spassing" and the freedom and catharsis that can be attained through such an act of emotional simplification.

It is of course important to take into consideration the group dynamic and the daring and emotionally honest performances from all involved (particularly Jens Albinus, Anne Louise Hassing, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Louise Mieritz), though, for me, it is the plight of Karen and her sense of sacrifice that ultimately defines the underling message of the film. Naturally, there is no getting away from the formal and technical constraints of the Dogme movement, with the film employing hand-held cameras, jump-cuts, natural lighting, no props and no post-synchronised sound, however, these factors should be seen as part of the visualisation of the text, as opposed to an empty aesthetic. Those that see the film and merely take from it the sense of experimentation and the surface controversy of theme and content (the explicit sexual footage takes up about five minutes of screen time in a film that runs for more than two hours) are really missing the point, whilst to limit the effect and purpose of the film to something as juvenile and trivial as the miss-treatment of the mental disabled, is on a par with people citing À bout de soufflé as being noting more than the film that gave us the nouvelle vague.

The Idiots is a film that goes much deeper than the central notion of intelligent characters acting the idiot, and instead, presents us with an honest and heartbreaking film about personal loss and the act of overcoming.

neither one thing

[Dr. Rob · 7/10 · 15 December 1998]

I don't know what dogma 95 implies but suppose it has something to do with trying to be as realistic as possible. The movie looks like it is made with a simple video camera, including microphones and other cameras on the screen. Many shots were over-exposed. Also the actors sometimes played (or improvised?) so well that it looks like a documentary. And like often happens in a documentary, there is not a real plot or worked out characters. This is all well done, but it is also the problem I have with this film: most of the times as a spectator you can't forget it's not real. Often the events or the acting simply aren't convincing enough. On me it never had the impact that a good documentary can have. Von Trier should have lived for a couple of months in some kind of sect, institution or whatever and filmed really from the inside.

Von Trier, what are you doing???????

[Joey-29 · 6/10 · 12 December 1998]

I couldn't appreciate this new Von Trier movie. I don't understand what he wants us to see. After seeing The Kingdom and Breaking The Waves, films I really liked, I went to see this one with high-standing expectations. People trying to get out their idiots, see how society reacts on them and try to have influence on that; could have been an interesting subject. But after two hours, the characters were still superficial. Hardly see any working-out or depth in the characters. For instance; in the last 20 minutes we find out who this people are, but that knowledge hardly added something to the movie. I just wondered why this movie was made and what the message was. Couldn't answer that one to myself. Funniest part of the film were the outtakes!

Sorry Lars, have seen you doing a better job!

this movie defies criticism

[marek-22 · 10/10 · 16 July 2002]

I just got to see it for a first time, in our Film Center, on a big screen, in 35mm. Then I hung around for the movie about its making, "The Humiliated"/"De Ydmygede". I ranked it a 10, and the movie about it was very good to see, too, and on a large screen, and in quick succession.

I was very saddened by the only idiotic thing about this movie: the black censorship rectangles slapped over the print clearly not by von Trier the film-maker, over penises of actors or over some other frontal nudity or gasp actual sex. In the context of this work, this nudity was about as offensive or noticable as in a medical context, that is to say, not at all. The censorship was not only ridiculously unnecessary but offensive in the extreme. I feel ashamed of living in the US when things like this happen. To me, this was the true humiliation -- and Lars von Trier is to be congratulated for evoking that out of our sad country.

"The Humiliated" was not edited, which, ironically, gives one the missing glimpse of anatomy, here and there. How pointless to even care to censor -- but also, how revealing. The two movies claw at the dishonesty of our culture and our hangups even in this wounded capacity as object of futile censorship.

At first I was annoyed by the clipped faces in von Trier's framing at the beginning, but then I understood (this was not my first Dogme95; I just forgot about this aspect of it). Once I understood, I got so absorbed in what was shown that I did not notice the passage of time and regretted when the movie ended.

The Idiots could do well a TV serial. It presaged the so-called reality TV and preempted it in one fell swoop. I think it will age very well as important fingerprint of our times. Maybe one day someday Americans will grow up enough to let it see the light of the projector or even TV without the silly black rectangles marring the print.

All involved should feel very excellent about making this movie. It does a great job approximating the complexity of real life, a little delicious, thoughtful corner of it, and an uncomfortable one, at that. It defies criticism.

Disturbing yet engaging

[Ricky-37 · 6/10 · 23 May 1999]

I found Trier's style in handheld camera work to be a little tiresome and annoying yet it gave a new dimension to the film. Idioterne almost makes the audience a participant in the "madness" which could make some people feel uncomfortable. It is a documentary style film that combines comedy and drama (and a plethora of explicit nudity)that ultimately stirs the senses as well as place the BBFC upon new ground. I recommend this film to any Trier fan as well as those who want something totally different to conventional cinema. Beware: this film may offend!

Could well be one of the greatest movies ever made

[YellowManReanimated · 9/10 · 12 February 2012]

I do not use the title to this review lightly, this film genuinely is that good. Von Trier manages to achieve in this film what visionary and influential directors such as Luis Bunuel, Michael Haneke and Remy Belveux et al have attempted in their own seminal works. Bunuel was extremely controversial for his time but even his most challenging and controversial films such as "L'Age d'or", "Le Discret Charme de la Bourgeosie" and "Belle de Jour" look refined and elegant almost in comparison to the gritty, completely unapologetic cinematic equivalent to a stiff middle finger that von Trier has created here. Belveux, Bonzel and Poelvoorde take cinema to deliciously shocking and extreme levels with "Man Bites Dog" but von Trier shows that there were still frontiers to cross. Haneke shows no mercy with his astonishing accomplishment "Funny Games" but in a sense dulls the belligerence of his movie somewhat by allowing it to be channelled specifically in the direction of desanitising violence and thereby reminding it's audience of it's power and horror, providing a justification for one of the most disturbing films I've seen. This in no way takes away it's power as a film it just makes it less controversial than the almost completely indefensible "The Idiots", which is what I'm here to review.

Why is "The Idiots" (Idioterne) possibly one of the greatest films ever made? Simply because it doesn't provide any justification for itself and because it asks for no sympathy, whilst challenging the most deeply cherished and hard clung to values of society. This film essentially mocks mental illness, capitalism and corporations, the institution of the family, death and friendship, essentially almost everything that societies, Western societies perhaps in particular (though not necessarily), are based on. This film tears up the rule book and does what all art attempts to do: find something that these rules are essentially based upon, namely, nature.

It is intimated that finding the inner idiot is the way that the characters in this film try to discover their own inner nature but that's only a smoke-screen in terms of what this film is really about. It's not so much that being an idiot brings truth, it brings something much more important: happiness. It is perhaps only for Karen that the two are one and the same. Every character is using the group as a way of making themselves happier. They're left to an extent unstimulated by "normality" and so they use being an idiot as a form of escapism, to provide that little extra that their normal life doesn't cater for. They don't ask themselves about whether what they are doing is moral because they don't care and in presenting this to us von Trier achieves the most powerful thing that art can render, the potential vacuousness of morality in the face of our own happiness. There is nothing objectively moral at all in the world or in our lives, it is a veil, or construct, we use to combat our unhappiness, namely to make ourselves look or feel better than we believe ourselves to be. Morality goes hand in hand with how a society operates and it works well enough for most, but then there are always those who need something else and this is what the group represents, that something else. Von Trier shows us that to appreciate life in a more honest and fundamental way means doing away with certain societal constructs, but of course those societal constructs exist for a reason, ie people want/ need them and the idiots in this film are in similar need of them to greater or lesser extents.

Each character is distinctive in the way that they approach their roles as idiots, no doubt most interestingly Karen and so I shall say a little about her character. In Karen we see the stripping down of morality that I talked about in the previous paragraph. Karen is initially extremely resistant to the "philosophies" and behaviour of the group but the longer she spends with the group the more she feels it's impact upon her own life to be genuinely beneficial. The two weeks she spends with the idiots proves to be a genuinely happy one for her where she is able to adjust to the trauma that life has rent upon her. And here we see the power of von Trier's vision, what society would condemn as ghastly, inhuman and despicable is in fact the thing that helps Karen deal with her profound grief. What does it matter that people might say that what she is a part of is wrong if it in fact makes her happy? And when one watches the film to its conclusion one will see the profundity of the dilemma that awaits the many who would no doubt feel differently. The point isn't whether you ultimately agree with the idiots way of life but whether you see the fundamental dilemma that Karen's interaction with the group poses.

Karen is not the only character of interest (one of the film's many strengths), I will end this review here though as I could really go on for an extremely long time about this film, from its technical Dogme 95 aspects to the extent that it is comic or tragic, etc. But what really matters here is the fact that the film is relentlessly human and relentlessly honest, something von Trier has a justified reputation for. It is also possibly von Trier's, or any director's, most creative, hilarious and immersive film yet and it is certainly his, and perhaps the, boldest.

10/10

Not a film for the left wing PC brigade

[CharltonBoy · 6/10 · 12 October 2001]

Of all the films i have reviewed on imdb this film has to be hardest to do. I'm not even going to try to explain what the Idiots is about because i'm not to sure myself. Is it a drama , is it a comedy or is this just pure irony? Whatever the director set out to do he made a piece of work which is both compelling as it is disturbing. I saw the uncut version which was shown on the UK's Film Four extreme and before the film came on they in a roundabout sort of way warned the audiance about some of the explicit sex scenes, i dont know why they bothered because they are very incidental. The Idiots is very sad in many aspects and a little to long but without doubt it is like no other film seen before. 6 out of 10

Skip it unless you understand Danish

[gonz30 · 5/10 · 9 December 1999]

I have seen all the Dogme 5 films, including IDIOTERNE, the second one. This one, unlike the others, is a complete waste of time except for Danish speakers. The long, inexact subtitles are too demanding and misleading; not that there's much of interest in the images, but I'll give the language difficulty the benefit of the doubt. It has been well received by Swedes and Germans who (especially the Swedes) can understand some of the dialogue with some ease. I found this Dogme 5 film, and one by the great Lars von Triers, a complete waste of time. We've seen it all before. It was like an inferior FESTEN 2, without the interesting set of characters, family interactions, and surprise plot twist. I knew no more about the "idiots" after the film finished than I did at the beginning, having read several synopses beforehand. A total disappointment. It's no wonder it hasn't been released in the US almost two years after its premiere. As allergic as Americans (unfortunately and intransigently, and due to films like this one) are towards "foreign" movies, IDIOTERNE will wildly fuel the fire over the "worthlessness" of "European" movies. Lars von Triers, after BREAKING THE WAVES (which no average movie goer here saw in spite of the awards and nominations), should know better than to be so self-indulgent, and commonly absurd. It's certainly neither original nor entertaining, and definitely not shocking. Lars, Scandinavians haven't shocked the world since the 60's. Just give us a good film!

I'm so glad this film was made!

[palders · 10/10 · 21 October 2002]

Punk exists in movies too! This is just a reaction to all the candy-assed Disneykids corny American filmmaking that absorbs money you could better spend on fighting poverty (not drugs). It makes me want to go out and see another plastic Hollywood disaster (without paying the fee) and spasm right there in the crowd! But of course I haven't got the balls for it.

Speaking of balls, the sex scene is also a very bald critique towards ridiculous porn and corny porn lovers. I'm glad there's also films being made for real adults. This is not distasteful; this is a blessing for taste and style. A movie that should be looked upon with great respect. Lars keeps me happy!

Seeing handicapped people misbehaving is not funny

[Dr_Coulardeau · 6/10 · 11 July 2014]

At first sight the film is plain idiotic. But there must be a second sight. The second sight is the manifesto behind the film I say the manifesto but certainly not the project because it has no objective OR destination whatsoever.

The manifesto first:

I swear to submit to the following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by DOGMA 95: 1- Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found). 2- The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.) 3- The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. 4- The film must be in color. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera.) 5- Optical work and filters are forbidden. 6- The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.) 7- Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.) 8- Genre movies are not acceptable. 9- The film format must be Academy 35 mm. 10- The director must not be credited. 11- Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a "work", as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. 12- My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations. Thus I make my VOW OF CHASTITY. Copenhagen, Monday 13 March 1995 On behalf of DOGMA 95 Lars von Trier Thomas Vinterberg

The concept of Chastity seems to imply all they refuse is for them nothing but a rape. They are raped by the camera, the director-dom, the actor-dom, etc. In other words they dream about making films without any cinema technology. They thus reduce their films to a mirage inside a delusion. And yet here is one film they made.

The film is an absolute illustration of these principles. It describes a voluntary community, if not a commune of some sort, of people systematically called, in the English subtitles since the film is in Danish, idiots, retards and other nice terms of this type. All the actors are acting their own parts, their own reality, their own truth. The retards in the film are retards in society.

Does this bring any truth?

These people who are going to a restaurant and acting their mental and behavioral handicap against the personnel and the customers in order to be kicked out, after eating of course, without paying does not reveal anything true or truthful since these people are playing what they are to gain an advantage. This is thus a big lie and nothing but racket.

In fact it reveals that the only decent people are more or less the innocent witnesses who actually accept the disturbance with patience or even accept to help the differently-abled persons with some empathy and care, like two tattooed bikers who actually take one of them who had been "entrusted" to them by his "educator" to the toilet and help him urinate without any fishiness.

Of course the fact that it is filmed is the proof it is all a lie. Too bad for Lars von Trier: we know there is a camera filming the scene that has probably been rehearsed several times.

The only moment when we may think something slightly enlightening is provided is at the end when an officially normal woman who is under a strong post-traumatic stress syndrome due to the death of her infant tries to go back to her husband and family. She is accepted, including the real handicapped woman who accompanies her, and yet she is unable to cope and she plays retard with catastrophic consequences. When we know she had escaped into that commune on the day before the funeral of her own child, we can measure how deep her Trauma was but that has little to do with mental handicap.

This Dogma thing seems to me to be extremely over-rated.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

If it wasn't for Bodil Jørgensen, this would definitely be idiotic!

[Sally_Kirkland · 3/10 · 6 June 2000]

This movie is awful. Yuk. Maybe there is suppose to be some fantastic idea beyond the idiots being idiots. But the movie never reveals itself.

All you get is talented Danish actors playing mentally disturbed for an hour and a half, pretending that they serve a greater purpose. Maybe the just serve the puzzled imaginations of Lars von Trier..

But there is absolutely no use of the madness whatsoever. I really dislike those, who feel that this movie have "touched" them in a special way. How can this movie touch anyone?? I hardly can't see why it shouldn't be annoying.

At the time of the release here in Denmark, a special von Trier diary was published. From reading this you get the idea that he probably did this movie for his own reasons. I really do not hope so. But I can't see another reason for making something so shallow and stupid as this.

Something good though came out of it: We got to see Bodil Jørgensen as a new star. She is fantastic in this one - and the only reason a grade this 3/10.

So please - don't try (or rent!) this at home.