IDIOTS

"About fifteen minutes into The Idiots I asked myself 'why was this film made' and spent the next 102 minutes searching fruitlessly for an answer. Lars Trier (he added the 'Von' himself) is the P.T. Barnum of contemporary cinema; asking us to witness the cinematic equivalent of the showman's famous 'Egress' exhibition only for us to discover, like Barnum's paying customers, that it's all a con and there is actually nothing to see. What does he hope to achieve by offering up a group of middle-class types who get their kicks by acting the fool in public? A plea for understanding by psychologically embattled individuals rejecting an increasingly depersonalised world? An expose of traditional society's complacency and hypocricy ? Or a desire simply to elicit our nervous reactions by exposing us to anxiety provoking situations. Whatever his aims this utterly stupid film grows tiresome very quickly and not even the aura of being made under the guidelines of the Dogma 95 manifesto can instill any interest. It's not even that offensive to the handicapped; it's offensive because it lacks a reason to exist other than as a private joke amongst those who made it. Unbelievably boring, intellectually empty and headache-inducing to watch (two hours of hand held camera is my idea of purgatory) The Idiots unmasks (Von) Trier as the pretentious huckster hinted at in previous films but this time the pathetically shallow joke isn't even funny."
Richard Kuipers

"As I’ve suggested before, Lars von Trier is a filmmaker who likes to work within a system of arbitrary, self-imposed rules – the latest example being his ‘realist’ manifesto Dogma ‘95. In all von Trier’s films, these artificial constraints tend to place the narrative in ironic quotes, allowing him to exploit various racy themes (sex, religious angst, fascism) while keeping his dandyish distance. It’s a strategy founded on posturing and bad faith – which, as it happens, is what his new movie is all about. Do the characters’ similarly arbitrary antics constitute some kind of valid protest or artistic statement, or are they really just a bunch of idiots? Implicitly the director asks the same question of himself, with unsettling results. Despite his claim to have found inspiration in the youthful energy of the French New Wave, this is a heavy and oppressive film that’s far from pleasurable to watch. Von Trier has abandoned the precise visual style of his previous work (including his control over color) for a deliberate, strident artlessness. There’s something physically sickening about the shaky, blown-up video image, the electronic glare of grass and sky, the wandering camera that lurches in and out of focus while the actors drool and carry on. The boring and repetitive scenes of ‘spassing’ that occupy most of the movie suggest a bad performance art project and tend to alienate the cinema audience as well as the ‘normal’ society within the film. But then, it's von Trier’s queasy, shameless idiocy that makes the whole enterprise somehow compelling – and by the time we reach the distressing final scenes, it’s hard to be sure who the idiots really are."
Jake Wilson