The Idiots (1998)

The group of people gather at the house in Copenhagen suburb to break all the limitations and to bring out the "inner idiot" in themselves.

Director:

Lars von Trier (uncredited)

Writer:

Lars von Trier

Stars:

Bodil Jørgensen, Jens Albinus, Anne Louise Hassing

6 wins & 5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Bodil Jørgensen	...	Karen
Jens Albinus	...	Stoffer
Anne Louise Hassing	...	Susanne
Troels Lyby	...	Henrik
Nikolaj Lie Kaas	...	Jeppe
Louise Mieritz	...	Josephine
Henrik Prip	...	Ped
Luis Mesonero	...	Miguel
Knud Romer Jørgensen	...	Axel
Trine Michelsen	...	Nana
Anne-Grethe Bjarup Riis	...	Katrine
Paprika Steen	...	High Class Lady
Erik Wedersøe	...	Stoffer's Uncle
Michael Moritzen	...	Man From Municipality
Anders Hove	...	Josephine's Father

Storyline

A group of perfectly intelligent young people decide to react to society's cult of aimless, non-creative and non-responsible form intellect by living together in a community of "idiots". Their main activity becomes going out into the world of "normal" people and pretending to be mentally retarded. They take advantage of this situation to create anarchy everywhere they go and try by every possible means to make people annoyed, disturbed, miserable, ridiculous, angered, and shocked. The film starts as they recruit a new lost soul and introduce her to their megalomaniac leader.

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Plot Keywords:

explicit sex | experimental film | dogme 95 | public nudity | community | 

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Taglines:

You're a whole lot dumber than you think

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong sexuality and nudity, and for language

Did You Know?

Trivia

Written in four days as part of the Dogma 95 Manifesto.

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Goofs

This is a film that adheres to the 'Dogme 95' manifesto, so the usual goof rules do not necessarily apply. This includes shots of the crew, microphones and other equipment, as well as continuity errors.

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Quotes

[Susanne puts a "spastic" Ped behind the van's steering wheel]
Guide at Factory: Who... is he driving?
Susanne: Responsibility does them good.
[Ped drives off recklessly]

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Alternate Versions

To avoid an NC-17 rating, the U.S. distributor used black bars to cover all shots of male genitals and penetration during the orgy scene.

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Connections

Referenced in Natholdet - med Anders Breinholt: Nikolaj Lie Kaas (2012)

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Soundtracks

The Swan
by Camille Saint-Saëns (as Camille Saint-Saens)

User Reviews

Utter crap

I'm sick and tired of uninventive egomaniacs with nothing to say making crap and adopting a pretentious attitude regarding it. Truly creative people create worthy works. Dumb, ambitious people who don't like to wake up early in the morning and go to work at a productive job, find the perfect solution to their dilemma: they decide become `artists'.

Eventually, they don't actually become artists, but they think that if they act weird enough and say plenty of stupid, incongruent stuff, maybe some backward, lonely, self abusing inbred with a Doctorate in hopelessness will want to become his/her groupie.

There are 2 main ways to making people believe you've become an accomplished artist:

1) By being one (hardest choice, it takes intelligence, knowledge and hard work) 2) By impersonating one (`- uh, maybe if I dress funny, act disgusted with everything most of the time, neglect my personal hygiene and criticize the System, people will think I'm an artist. Hell, that's what artists do. If I can't mimic their talent, I'll mimic their lifestyles peculiarities. And of course, I'll put a penis or two going in and out some girls vagina in a really close shot, and a bunch of people dumbing around with nothing to say but saying it anyway in a cynical, yet resigned to modern man's alienation, and I´ll instantly be regarded as a master of contemporary social critique')

What the hell is going on in Europe ??? Is it that mad cow disease ???



About Dogma 95: it's crap. Dumb crap. It limits an art form already suffering currently from creative mediocrity even more, with no evident reason to do so. It's like making pianists play with only 3 fingers. Of course, if there's not much you could play in the first place, this limits will at least level you with the more accomplished performers. Screw limits. The only limit are those of your creativity. Don't cripple others just because you are handicapped in that area.

If von Trier is looking for Realism he should go to a pub and get wasted, or go mining for coal, and leave cinema to artists and less pretentious artisans. Filming uneventful stories with ridiculous characters in boring situations, using restrictive uninventive techniques (to put it mildly) is not "Realistic" Cinema. I don't no what the hell it is, but it sure is as merit-less as dropping a pebble and hitting the ground.

By the way, ordinary people doing ordinary everyday things is not art. Taking a crap is not art. Poking is not art. Grow up. If you like your films sh***y and porny go ahead, knock yourself stupid. But don't be so serious about your own personal fetishes. They're just that. Make your own home-movies and then go lock yourself in the bathroom to see them, conveniently disgracing yourself for the better part of it. Just keep that out of theatres. Some confused youth might actually see it and believe it to possess some sort of merit. It doesn't. We all know how dumb confused, young people are.

Details

Official Sites:

Dogme 95 collective

Country:

Denmark Spain Sweden France Netherlands Italy

Language:

Danish

Release Date:

21 May 1998 (France)

Also Known As:

Dogma 95 - Idioterne

Filming Locations:

Søllerød, Sjælland, Denmark

Box Office

Budget:

$2,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Zentropa Entertainments, Danmarks Radio (DR), Liberator Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

117 min 110 min (cut)

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1