The Idiots

Dir: Lars von Trier

1998

*****

Lars von Trier's Dogme 95 classic (Dogme #2 to be precise) is dark, cruel and utterly hilarious. Remembered for a lot of the wrong reasons and often misunderstood, The Idiots remains a controversial talking point and a questionable example of censorship being pushed to its limits. The idiots in question are a small group of anti-establishment, anti-bourgeois thinkers who develop a method of provoking society as a form of protest. The group pretend to be either physically or mentally disabled in public, often walking unnaturally, dribbling, slurring their words or spitting out their food. They refer to this act as 'spassing' (derived from the word Spastic), which is a form of discovering one's inner idiot. They feel that society and the establishment see their intelligence as uncreative and unchallenging, so they seek the uninhibited self-expression that they imagine a romantic ideal of disability will allow. It is offensive to the disabled or sure but it is never the intention, rather it is showing the lack of ability - or lack of imagination etc that the accepting establishment lack. Lars von Trier is making a point against the establishment but also showing up egotistical intellectual charlatans who feed off the weak and vulnerable, which is shown in the film's devastating final scene. To me, it has always seemed to be a simple exercise in mocking and highlighting the fraud that lives in the world of conceptual art and literature. Trier also points out that all of us often miss the point, this is abundantly clear in the Idiots as most people remember the explicit sex scenes of the film, which is the most unremarkable part of the film. People have sex, no big deal and yet this is what everyone focused on. I wonder if this film distanced Trier from many of his contemporaries, it certainly made him stand out from the pack. I believe he's the real deal and his films are authentic. It's subjective, as are all things, but I think Trier highlights the idiot in us all in such a clever way but instead of proclaiming that we should all find our inner idiot in many ways he makes it devastating clear that we should wise up, and do it now. The film will bother most people and indeed that is the point. If you make a film about provocation that isn't itself in some way provocative then you're not doing it right. It has its place, is utterly unique and acts as the 'stone in your shoe' that Trier believes all films should be.