Dogme #2: Idioterne (The Idiots)

I'm going to start my first legit blog post with a couple of disclaimers:

• Trigger warning: discussion of ableism and sexual violence 

• Spoiler alert: don't read if knowing a lot about specific events in the film will be hazardous to your enjoyment of viewing the film in question (but if you're not planning on watching it or you don't care about spoilers read on, my friend)

-Nate

“Idioterne” was my first Dogme 95 experience, and honestly I am glad that it was. I have read about the film for years but was never able to track down a copy. I used this project as an excuse to buy the film. I had wanted to find a European DVD so that I could find out if the multi-region DVD player I bought from a shady ebay dealer actually worked, but a Canadian VHS was a bit more affordable. 

Lars von Trier is a master provocateur. If you look at his oeuvre you’ll discover some kind of controversy surrounding almost all of his films. Whether it was the graphic genital mutilation and infanticide in “Antichrist,” the unsimulated sex in that film as well as in “Idioterne,” the emotional abuse that Björk accused him of during the making of “Dancer in the Dark” or the comments that he made during the Cannes film festival last year that caused him to be labelled “persona non grata.” Let it be noted that provocation is not a term I throw around lightly. Not too much actually truly offends me (thanks to an enormous amount of privilege that I am not going to deny), but von Trier has consistently been able to challenge me. I was introduced to his work several years ago when I watched “Dancer in the Dark” for the first time. I was a big fan of Björk’s music (if you’re not familiar with Björk, look her up; some people may have compared Lady Gaga to her, but their similarities end with their bizarre fashion tastes. Björk’s music isn’t conventional; she sounds like she looks) and then I found out that she was in a film (for which she won an award at Cannes). I had to watch it right away.  A musical starring Björk had to have been spectacular. And it was; for a little while, “Dancer in the Dark” was my favourite film. After that, I had a desire to learn more about von Trier. That was when I first heard about Dogme 95 and “Idioterne.” I kind of forgot about von Trier for a couple of years until I heard all of the buzz surrounding “Antichrist” (a film which challenged me greatly). My interest in Dogme 95 was renewed after watching a few more of von Trier’s films, yet I had neglected to seek out copies of any of the Dogme films. So, when Robbie (the guy who wrote the very first post on this blog) approached me about starting this blog on Dogme 95, I was more than willing and I was actually pretty excited.

"Idioterne (The Idiots)" is about a group of people who pretend to be mentally handicapped (or “spassers” as they are frequently referred to within the film. “Spasser” is pretty much equivalent to the word “retard”). That one-sentence summary would not make me want to see the film, it was everything else that I had ever read that piqued my interest. I did actually have numerous assumptions about “Idioterne” before my first viewing. I just knew that it was going to be ableist garbage and that I was going to be offended at every turn. But was I? Not exactly. To give you some background as to why I am generally disgusted with ableism, my younger brother and sister both have “special needs” as do several of my cousins, (their diagnoses range from Asperger’s and autism to a rare chromosomal deletion called Phelan McDermid syndrome [my sister is afflicted with the latter]). My sister goes to a school for “special needs” children and I’m very familiar with people of all kinds of (dis)ability levels. That is not to say that I wasn't challenged by this film, I am still struggling to understand everything that happened in the film.

The group of "idiots" live in a house that is for sale, and they have abandoned their family lives in order to live with greater freedom against the grain of middle class society. They go in public and perform "socially unacceptable acts" (acting as mentally handicapped people or "spassing out"). Stoffer (the leader of the group) eventually decides that in order to really be true "idiots" (the people of the future), they needed to "spass out" in their everyday lives. Most of the group isn't up to that task; only Karen (the newest member of the group) is able to go all the way, but it ends rather devastatingly.

My copy of the film was... mostly uncut. I know that some versions of the film cut out scenes in their entirety. Thankfully, this one only placed giant black boxes over phalluses (I’m not exactly sure why the censors felt that it was necessary to cover male genitalia but that it was perfectly okay for depictions of breasts and vulvas to abound). While the black boxes were a bit annoying and definitely non-diegetic (which sort of compromised the integrity of the manifesto), I’m thankful that the scenes were otherwise intact and that the censorship only went as far as it did. In addition to the irony of the big black bars, I found it rather ironic that at the beginning of the tape there were commercials for the kind of mainstream Hollywood drivel to which the Dogme 95 movement was a reaction. But to think that there would be no advertising on the tape would have been unrealistic.

The acting in the film was superb; I cannot make any complaints in that department. When I watch films, I want to be moved. The film accomplished that, I experienced a wide range of emotions throughout. There’s a point that one character, Karen is staring out a window and crying; she practically breaks down and eventually starts "spassing" for the first time. During my second viewing, now watching with the knowledge that she had lost her son and ran off with the “idiots” the day before his funeral, I was devastated with her. I felt the pain that she was feeling as she began to let her inhibitions go and she “spassed out” for the first time. Honestly, when they were “spassing,” I believed them (they resembled so many people I've come into contact with through my sister’s school or from my own family).  That they were so believable was unsettling, but (however offensive their appropriation of attributes associated with mental handicap seems) it is a testament to their acting ability (from reading a bit of von Trier's diary, I've discovered that the actors visited a group home or an institution and spent time with actual mentally handicapped people to prepare for the scenes where they "spass out").


After Stoffer decided to integrate "idiocy" into their every day lives, he challenged his fellow "idiots" to attempt to do just that. Henrik, an art teacher, stood in front of his class (filled with little old ladies) and froze, failing to "spass out" in his real life. In that scene, I experienced a feeling of great tension and I was terribly uncomfortable. I didn't want him to "spass out" in front of those little old ladies, I didn't want the lines of his identity to blur to the point where there was no distinction between who he really was and his "inner idiot." I guess it was sort of like how one might have different ways of acting around different people. When you're with your friends you feel free to use "salty language" but you would never cuss in front of your grandma. In the same way that I felt tension when Henrik attempted to "spas" in front of his art class filled with little old ladies, I was worried for Karen when she "spassed out" at home with her mother and sisters and husband at the end of the film. It was like she was dropping the "f-bomb" in front of her grandma. I felt far more uncomfortable when she "spassed out" at home than when anyone "spassed out" any other time in the film. 


I could have believed that it was a Maysles brothers documentary, a disturbing Scandinavian relative of Grey Gardens. I often felt like I was a witness to real situations. I mean it is hard to imagine the events in the film to happen in real life, but the film accomplished the goals of the Dogme 95 manifesto. It was a return to cinematic truth. It made me feel as though I were a fly on the wall. It was cinema vérité at its best and it was fictional (although I’ve yet to see other Dogme films, so maybe this judgement is a bit premature). The shaky handheld camera work and poor lighting made the film seem all the more real. Adding to this feeling of documentary were interviews with members of the group that were interspersed throughout the film. There were even several points where crew members were visible on camera (Jack Stevenson says in his book "Dogme Uncut" that this is an example of "visible crew" which perpetuated von Trier's desire to be "transparent" and to challenge the audience). The "visible crew" definitely made the film seem even more like a documentary.

One exchange of dialogue summed up many of my feelings throughout the film

                Karen: But there are people who are really ill. It’s sad for people who are not able like us. 

                How — How can you justify acting like idiots?

                Stoffer: You can’t.

                Karen: I’d just like to understand.

Karen’s sentiments resonated with me. I was feeling the same way. I didn’t understand why they were “spassing out.” Stoffer (the leader of the pack) said over and over again that they were “enlightened,” that they were finding their “inner idiots” and letting go of inhibitions and norms created by bourgeois attitudes. I think that rebellion against bourgeois standards and ideals is a totally cool thing. I can affirm “going against the grain” for the sake of critiquing the rigid and restrictive bounds of what is acceptable within society. And at first I couldn’t wrap my head around how what these people were doing could be commentary on middle class norms. There was a point during my second viewing that I began to almost understand it (although I still cannot claim to fully understand the actions of the characters in the film). After Karen first experiences Stoffer and friends’ “spassing,” this exchange of dialogue takes place:

                Karen: I didn’t think that was very funny.

                Stoffer: Why not?

                Karen: You poke fun.

                Stoffer: They’re the ones who poke fun.

I began to think that they were legitimately “spassing out” as an act of subversion not mockery of those with mental handicaps. In a way, that they were acting out in these unacceptable ways to make people without disabilities recognise what was wrong with their standards of decency. By “spassing out” in a restaurant and causing the other diners to feel uncomfortable (a scene that felt all too real to me), they were bringing attention to the ableism that existed. Sometimes my sister gets a little loud in public places and we are met with stares (one time my parents were asked to leave an establishment because they “couldn’t control” my sister), so the scene in the restaurant was very familiar to me. When Stoffer (acting as the “minder,” or the “follow along” of sorts, in this situation) pretended that Jeppe was his mentally handicapped brother at the bar, I felt like the exchange between Jeppe and the bikers was extremely reflective of exchanges with people who try to understand but really can’t because they don’t live with it every day. By “spassing out,” I think the “idiots” were not only freeing themselves from their inhibitions and resorting to serving their Id, but they were questioning the bounds of what is acceptable. They were drawing attention to those “who poke fun” at people who are outside of those bounds.

It is hard for me to not credit von Trier with everything in the film. I've been so ingrained with the idea of “the auteur” (a concept which von Trier calls “bourgeois” even though it stemmed from the initially anti-bourgeois nouvelle vague movement of the 1960s) that it is hard for me to separate him from the film. But in Dogme 95, there is no “auteur.” This is evident in the end credits of the film when we see the words “The Idiots was made by” and then a list of names. But the name Lars von Trier does not appear once.

Overall, I must say that I liked the film. But like all of von Trier’s oeuvre it is not for everyone and I would be hesitant to recommend it to someone I didn’t know very well (I actually lost a friend after watching “Antichrist” with her*).

*that statement was an exaggeration, but after that we were never able to look at each other the same way