Tag der Idioten (1981)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

Director:

Werner Schroeter

Writers:

Dana Horaková (writer)
Werner Schroeter (writer)

Release Date:

26 March 1982 (West Germany)

Genre:

Drama | Fantasy

Plot Keywords:

Shower Scene | Beautiful Woman | Female Frontal Nudity | Female Nudity | Mental Illness

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Carole Bouquet	...	Carole
Ingrid Caven	...	Dr. Laura
Christine Kaufmann	...	Ruth
Ida Di Benedetto	...	Elisabet
Carola Regnier	...	Ninon
Mostefa Djadjam	...	Alexander
Hermann Killmeyer	...	Markus
Marie-Luise Marjan	...	Schwester Marjan
Magdalena Montezuma	...	Zigeunerin
Tamara Kafka
Dana Medrická
Fritz Schediwy
Jana Plichtová
George Stamkoski	...	Stamkoski, George (as George Stamskoski)
Ula Stöckl

Also Known As:

Day of the Idiots

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

West Germany

Language:

German

Color:

Color

Certification:

France:-12 | West Germany:18 (bw)

Company:

OKO-Film

Pointless and boring German "Autorenfilm"

When Hollywood was already producing the first blockbuster classics like Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark in the late seventies and early eighties, German cinemas only saw three kinds of own film productions on their screens - stupid nonsense comedies, successful softsex films like the "Schulmadchenreport" or "Lass jucken Kumpel" series and boring and message-ladden post-1968 "auteur movies". The latter section contained some very good films, though, but most of these sometimes badly-made student films without any scripts and plots were really a big thing amongst German film critics (who were probably the only audience to that).

The pointless "Tag der Idioten" from 1982 is such a movie. The non-story tells us something about a crazy woman who is looking for contact and checks out some new ways of life restlessly, like staying in an asylum, but finally she can't decide and commits suicide. This is basically what it's all about, and the whole apocalyptic view on life, a general topic of those times of left-winged/communist terrorism and the rise of alternative lifestyles all over Europe, becomes increasingly disturbing and boring to the spectators at the same time.

Two persons are worth being mentioned in this connection. Main actress Carole Boquet just starred in this German b-movie a few months after her big role as Bond girl (!) in the James Bond adventure "For Your Eyes Only" with Roger Moore, and script writer Dana Horakova later became the Minister of Culture in the conservative and right-winged city council of Hamburg from 2001-2004. Unbelievable but true!