The Idiots

MOVIE #1,062 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 07.13.23 RANKING LARS VON TRIER: #12 There’s a lot going on with The Idiots. It is the second film of the international Dogma 95 movement, a quasi-farcical, manifesto-driven endeavor to create films solely based on the traditional values of story, acting, and theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology (more on this in a bit). And it’s also the second film of Trier’s Golden Heart Trilogy, so named after a children’s book Trier read about a little girl lost in the woods who gives away everything she has to others needier than herself. At first glance the parallels between these two installments seem hard to find. Truth be told, I didn’t know that little nugget about the trilogy’s origins. But I feel like it’s a good foundation to go into these movies with.

The premise of this film is offensive on any level and by any definition. It wears this on its sleeve. If it is something you can’t break away from, critically or conceptually, then you will not like this film; you will probably HATE this film. It’s a film which deserves this scorn and actively seeks it out. And it’s the latter point which makes it actually good.

The plot, as it were: “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.” The connection to Breaking the Waves or to “a little girl lost in the woods” might feel like a million miles off, but the conclusion of this film is so stark, so grounded and so connected, it’s clear as day.

Among the first films ever to be shot entirely with digital cameras, The Idiots, well, looks like one of the first films ever to be shot entirely with digital cameras. But there is an excitement and an immediacy which comes with the use of this (at the time) new medium, and that carries through to today. All of the Dogma 95 movies come with a cute little certificate which is filmed onscreen as a title card before the film rolls. This movie operates at 60% Dogma 95, failing to observe 4 of the movement’s 10 rules. The whole thing on some level, LIKE ALL ART (!), is a big put-on. But having seen two (of the 35) Official Dogma 95, it’s clear that the ethos isn’t meant to adhere to a strict set of rules. They’re guidelines for creation, to make something that’s a part of something else, of an ilk, so to speak. And yet they’re guidelines which, in the wrong hands, could/would prove disastrous. I would imagine a bad Dogma 95 movie is as bad as movies can possibly get.

It’s Trier’s ability not just to make this weird, warped trip worth your time (with the fully executed ending), but to tie it to its predecessor that is truly special. I have no idea where the next film, Dancer in the Dark, might go but I can’t wait to find out.

ranking lars von trier cont'd
#13 ↩ • ↪ #11

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The Idiots (Danish: Idioterne) is a 1998 Danish black comedy-drama film written and directed by Lars von Trier. It is his first film made in compliance with the Dogme 95 Manifesto,[3] and is also known as Dogme #2. It is the second film in von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy, preceded by Breaking the Waves (1996) and succeeded by Dancer in the Dark (2000). It is among the first films to be shot entirely with digital cameras. It was screened at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for the Palme d’Or, despite being met with widespread criticism upon release. It was released on May 20, 1998.