A Major Disappointment

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Shot and finished entirely in four days. "The Idiots" is the second in Lars Von Trier's "Golden Heart Trilogy", and the 2nd film of the Dogme Manifesto. "The Idiots" depending on your sensibilities will either shock, confuse and offend you. Most likely you will feel all three."The Golden Heart" trilogy in a nutshell involves the female protagonist to remain completely naive throughout the story, and virtually give all of herself up to and for the people she loves.A lady named Karen becomes friends with a bunch of very intelligent, welcoming group of people. However she inevitably becomes invited into the groups hidden agenda, which is acting like "retards" to blend into the world and escape the restrictions of societal norms. Part of me got a little offended, due to having autistic friends and family. However I didn't dwell on those emotions, as I struggled to find a deeper interest in the picture. Sadly by the end of it, it's clear that from what I saw maybe Von Trier wanted to see how far he could go in terms of decency. Sadly, that's not a notion that manages to carry an entire film forward on that strength alone.Final Verdict: I can appreciate the experimentation behind it. I was waiting for something to be said to justify this behaviour, or for the characters to bring me some kind of sense to their plan. Yet the more you analyse the movie, the more you begin to feel maybe the point of the film was to actually have no point. A crazy notion, but the only one I can get my head around. Not essential viewing, but watch at your own risk. 5/10.

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

I watched this a long time ago but never reviewed it. The Idiots' is a film directed by Lars Von Trier in 1998, it was made in compliance with the Dogme '95 Manifesto; an avant-garde filmmaking movement started in 1995, and was his first film. 'The Idiot's' focuses upon the tale of a group of people who feign mental disabilities in pursuit of their 'inner idiot', their 'spassing out' is an attempt to release their inhibitions.The film was deemed shocking, despite many disability groups approving of the film and agreeing that it exposed underlying social prejudices against disability. Micro-elements contributed to the shocking effect which this film induced upon some audiences. Realism was used to suspend the audiences sense of disbelief, such was achieved through sound, which was mainly diegetic. The dialogue seems real, unrehearsed and alike to everyday conversation but for the content of the conversations between characters. In making the dialogue believable, and in casting the characters to be believable, the film seems more real, thereby engaging the audience attention, forcing them to relate to it. The shock value is inevitably heightened.My personal interpretation of the film is that it aims to educate the audience about society's general view and attitude towards disabled people. The female main character begins oblivious to the groups intentions and ways (like the audience) and as she is led into their world so is the audience. The film seems to be about seeking deeper meanings, and sharing different perspectives, whether it be sharing the perspectives of someone completely healthy, someone disabled, someone inside the group or outside of it. I think that initially the main character acts as a representation of the ignorance of a lot of people to disability, and is a tool within the film to educate the audience. The film does not seem to hold bias as to a certain perspective, but rather it is exploratory of different perspectives, whether they be shown through conflict between the characters, or contrast between general society and the group.I highly recommend this film, and suggest viewers put aside their judgements until the credits scroll.

REVIEW: The IdiotsThe Idiots (1198, Lars von Trier) is the second Dogma film and one of the most representative of the whole movement. Actually it can be said that the film works as a metaphor of Dogma 95. Where in the film the characters form a group that breaks with their society's norms, the Dogma 95 was a group of people that went against the film making-norms. All the features that characterize both the dogma films and the "idiots" are designed to go against the mainstream, the middle class, to avoid being common and perhaps achieving a new and more true way of storytelling/living. The Dogma manifesto is aimed towards a purer film, just like the idiots in the movie aiming for a purer lifestyle. The prominent technique used in the film is largely following the rules of the Dogma manifesto. In this way there is almost no technique, the restrictions created by the manifesto make the style more "pure", creating a sense of things being natural which directly ties into one of the main themes of the movie- which is the characters obsession with getting away from society and normal life hence acting like idiots- which is also a direct reflection on why the manifesto was made in the first place. By allowing the actors to improvise von Trier further pushes this "pure" style, there was a script but it was very loosely followed. The actors were allowed to break from the norms of acting, letting themselves be idiots in a sense, while still maintaining their role as an actor- as they are only acting like idiots. We have noticed that almost all of them have interpretated during the film two characters –the disabled one, and the "normal" one-. The voyer does not know when the actors are playing their real they and when are not. Consequently, the film seems to be liberated from the frontier between fiction and reality at the same that that becames genre classified: mokumentary? Docu-drama? Did they find their idiot? In several times during the film the members of the group are asking themselves about the sense of their exercise. One of the most tensional moments of the film is when Stoffer, the leader of the group, slips out of his role as "retarded" and declares that the group should give up the exercise and go home. The barrier between their idiots lifes and their daily lifes is clearly distinguished. They are not free to be idiots all the time, they can not escape the unhappy society, their "middle class" life. Karen is the only one that really needed to find her inner idiot because no one of the others dares to show their idiot at home. That shows that Karen is the only one who can escape social norms, if even momentarily.