De ydmygede (1998) User Reviews

Fascinating look into the mind of Von Trier

[giantpanther · 8/10 · 27 September 2009]

It took me forever to find this film as I live in America. What interested me most was Von Trier's blunt honesty through his little diary recorder. The relationship he has with Anne Louise Hassing is probably the most interesting dimension. The film (and shooting of the film of The Idiots) starts off with him lavishing her with praise, and even confessing to a certain crush he has on her in his diary.

Throughout the film though this slowly turns to hostility to her, with him confessing through his voice over narration at one point "enough of this touchy feely stuff" or something like that. Near the end he feels that Anne is delivering a poor performance, and it becomes grueling.

This is a companion piece to the Idiots, and I strongly suggest that you see the Idiots first. Its a great strange documentary that could only come out of wonderful Denmark.

Great documentary in the true spirit of Dogme95

[UlrikSander · 7/10 · 19 February 2006]

Lars von Trier's masterpiece IDIOTERNE (1998) is an absolute must-see if you are interested in European independent movies with more depth and originality than the average Hollywood blockbuster formula: kiss kiss, bang bang!!

If you want to learn more about IDIOTERNE, about the creation of it, about sticking to the Dogme95 rules, and Lars von Trier's thoughts during the process then Jesper Jargil's documentary DE YDMYGEDE is absolutely essential viewing. It's structured together by short clips from Trier's movie, Jargil's footage shot on the set, and, most importantly, out-takes from Lars von Trier's dicta-phone diary used as a voice-over.

Lars von Trier speaks straight from his heart without beating around the bush. He talks about his feelings, thoughts, phobias, meanings, and different problems he had during the shooting the movie. I once saw an interview with Trier, in which he said he would have loved if Ingmar Bergman had written diaries during shooting of his classics, so in a sense, Trier is doing all his young fans a favor. It's a truly a great gift for young ambitious movie-makers. Yet his very unfiltered diary entries are a mess without any kind of structure, and I believe some of it could have been left out. Running at 79 minutes, I think Jargil's documentary could have used some tightening up, some of the material is simply not interesting enough. On the other hand, the loose structure goes very well hand-in-hand with IDIOTERNE, and is as such not meant as an average factual documentary, rather than a fly-on-the wall kind with emotional insight into the director's mind. Definitely worth a watch! 7/10

Very needed, but suffers from some filler footage

[marek-22 · 9/10 · 16 July 2002]

Anyone who sees The Idiots should be encouraged to see this movie as well. The two work very well as one combined movie, and should be distributed together. The 79 minutes of this documentary would merit a full 10 if all of its footage was apt. There is a little bit (8 minutes?) of filler stuff. Perhaps it merits re-cutting. Good job, overall.