The Idiots

1998 "Society is the mother of all Idiots."
6.7| 1h54m| R| en| More Info
Released: 28 April 1998 Released
Producted By: Zentropa Entertainments
Country: Netherlands
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.dogme95.dk/the_idiots/content/index.htm
Synopsis

With his first Dogma-95 film director Lars von Trier opens up a completely new film platform. With a mix of home-video and documentary styles the film tells the story of a group of young people who have decided to get to know their “inner-idiots” and thus not only facing and breaking their outer appearance but also their inner.

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Reviews

Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable
TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Verity Robins Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Ellie_Rahmati "The Idiots" is an absolutely interesting film to watch, not because of its obedience of the so called Dogme 95 manifesto but because it raises a lot of questions and challenges us with its not so much hidden political agenda to rethink the authenticity of our predefined social and moral codes. This is a study of how we choose to explore our inner idiots and external social tensions that follow these choices.The film follows a group of young people living together and impersonating mentally retarded people as an attempt to find their inner idiots and thus achieving true happiness, they do so in public places and when they're home and around each other and there are moments that they do actually seem genuinely happy but new circumstances appear that confronts them and us as viewers to serious questions about the morality of their acts and weather they deserve happiness under these terms or not. "The Idiots" is really about something. It introduces characters that we get to know and it has them ask bold questions and make an effort to find out the answers, even if there turns out to be none. What Von Trier does not only in "The idiots" but in some of his other films as well is to create these well thought, harmonious sets in the first half of the film only to dismantle and fall them apart in the second half where reality shows up and hidden brutal layers of their respective worlds can't help to leak in. The movie starts as what we think is a satire of bourgeoisie and middle class values by a group of bohemians but it goes on to being a satire of both groups, although it shows more compassion towards the latter, no matter how unconventional their methods are to reach some sort of peace and happiness. Everything falls apart only when they try to apply to their group the same despicable middle class principles that they were escaping from in the first place, by trying to assign winners and losers, who is a good spasser and who is not, who is more serious about this and who isn't, basically by asking all the wrong questions. On the other hand, this is only Stoffer's and maybe partly Axel's part of the story and his point of view and his take on this experience, he is the one hating the bourgeoisie, we don't really hear about the other's motivations until nearly the end of the film. The artist is there because he thinks it will help him become a better artist, the doctor is there to experiment, Josephine is using as a substitute to her medications, other's might be just playing around and Karen as it turns out by hiding out in the idiots world is trying to cope with the harsh reality of her life, the loss of her child. I think this lack of consensus is crucial towards understanding this film and characters and their final separation. The film can also be viewed as a social critic on the society's hypocratic behavior towards the mentally retarded, well maybe not in a traditional sense. The idiots are always taken care of and never disrespected by the people. Denmark is a state that takes care of everyone and this is visible through the entire movie but there's one thing that is hard to ignore and that is this sense of awkwardness and discomfort and embarrassment that they cause for the normal society anywhere they go, even there are is someone coming and offering them money to move to somewhere else, the couple who come to buy the house is obviously distraught and wants to get out of the situation as fast as possible, so is everybody else, the only person that they encounter and shows them love and compassion and not just pity is Karen who goes with them and joins them.
ironhorse_iv 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.
Jackson Booth-Millard From director Lars Von Trier (Dogville), I remember seeing this Danish film at least once or twice, but I didn't really know what to think of it, the critics think it is good. Basically it sees a group of young adults, all normal, regular and intelligent people spend time together in a small society to find their "inner idiot". This is to have some kind of entertainment in public pretending to be mentally retarded, taking advantage of the situation with those who fall into believing it. One of the newly recruited members of the group starts out going along with it, but slowly she becomes highly uncomfortable with the stupid activities they are getting themselves into, they are almost becoming what they are pretending to be, retarded. Starring Bodil Jørgensen as Karen, Jens Albinus as Stoffer, Anne Louise Hassing as Susanne, Troels Lyby as Henrik, Nikolaj Lie Kaas as Jeppe, Louise Mieritz as Josephine, Henrik Prip as Ped and Luis Mesonero as Miguel. To be honest the only bit of the film I can ever remember is the part when they are all taking their clothes off, running about naked, and having a near orgy, but I do also remember it having an interesting documentary style, it is a weird comedy drama. Worth watching, at least once, in my opinion!
tomgillespie2002 Never one to shy from a bit of controversy, Danish director Lars Von Trier caused a storm in 1998 with The Idiots. Since then, he has started making American movies that seem almost misogynistic in it's attitudes to women. His films put their female protagonist through horrifying and gruelling psychological and physical abuse. But the controversy stirred up by The Idiots wasn't because of its portrayal of women, but its apparently sadistic mockery of the mentally disabled.The film follows a bunch of young men and women, living together in a large house owned by the uncle of Stoffer (Jens Albinus), who spend their time pretending to be mentally ill and finding their 'inner idiot'. They pick up an apparently lost woman Karen (Bodil Jorgensen) at a restaurant and she joins them, equally fascinated and repulsed by their acts. As Karen searches for her inner idiot, the group continue to 'spas' (Danish equivalent of 'spaz') at various locations, seemingly for their own amusement. Stoffer is meant to be selling the house for his uncle, but since the group has settled their, he uses the group as a means to scare away any potential buyers. However, tensions start to develop in the group, mainly due to the increasingly aggressive and unpredictable behaviour of the unstable Stoffer.It's difficult to work out who exactly Von Trier is poking fun at. It could be the group themselves, who claim to be anti-bourgeois and anti- middle class, yet seem to only use this claim when it frees them from responsibility. A member of the group, who has run away from his wife and his child, thinks about returning, only to describe the thought of pushing his child around in a pram as 'so middle class'. Or the film could be making fun of society's attitudes to the mentally disabled. When a potential buyer for the house is told by Stoffer that a house for the mentally ill has opened next door, the woman is clearly uncomfortable at the idea of them encroaching on their ideal middle class existence. When the group surrounds her, she panics and flees, most likely never to return. It is not a film that lays out its purpose as clear as day. If there is a social message in the film at all is again unclear. What is clear is that The Idiots is a challenging, frustrating, funny, intelligent and extremely uncomfortable film. Von Trier's desire to be as controversial as possible has been evident in the majority of his films - the clitoris removal in Antichrist, the cold, brutal ending of Dancer In The Dark. I usually find annoying in a filmmaker (Gaspar Noe comes to mind, apart from his exceptional Irreversible), but Von Trier's ability to genuinely unsettle is the work of an extremely interesting and gifted filmmaker. Although it breaks many of the rules, The Idiots is the second film in the Dogme '95 manifesto, started by Thomas Vinterberg's Festen, using natural light, hand-held cameras, and avoiding anything implicating genre or superficial action. The film also depicts apparently un- simulated hardcore sex, in a highly controversial scene in which the group take place in a gang-bang while in their 'idiot' character-mode.A love-it-or-hate-it film, but I found it truly original and fascinating. www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com