BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

gogoschka-1 Some of the best acting you'll ever see. Let's call this one a "hardcore dramedy" - there are scenes that had me roaring with laughter, others are sad and tender (and there are even some hardcore porn shots). A unique masterpiece by the crazy Danish maestro Lars von Trier. 9 stars out of 10.In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:imdb.com/list/ls070242495

George Roots (GeorgeRoots) Shot and finished entirely in four days. "The Idiots" is the second in Lars Von Trier's "Golden Heart Trilogy", and the 2nd film of the Dogme Manifesto. "The Idiots" depending on your sensibilities will either shock, confuse and offend you. Most likely you will feel all three."The Golden Heart" trilogy in a nutshell involves the female protagonist to remain completely naive throughout the story, and virtually give all of herself up to and for the people she loves.A lady named Karen becomes friends with a bunch of very intelligent, welcoming group of people. However she inevitably becomes invited into the groups hidden agenda, which is acting like "retards" to blend into the world and escape the restrictions of societal norms. Part of me got a little offended, due to having autistic friends and family. However I didn't dwell on those emotions, as I struggled to find a deeper interest in the picture. Sadly by the end of it, it's clear that from what I saw maybe Von Trier wanted to see how far he could go in terms of decency. Sadly, that's not a notion that manages to carry an entire film forward on that strength alone.Final Verdict: I can appreciate the experimentation behind it. I was waiting for something to be said to justify this behaviour, or for the characters to bring me some kind of sense to their plan. Yet the more you analyse the movie, the more you begin to feel maybe the point of the film was to actually have no point. A crazy notion, but the only one I can get my head around. Not essential viewing, but watch at your own risk. 5/10.

ironhorse_iv Movie such as this is one of the reasons I can't stand any of the depressing melodrama for the sake of depressing melodrama that's over-saturating every medium on the planet these days. Enough of these bad things happen in real life, we don't need everything we watch nor read or listen to; to get away from normal life to be completely centered around the exact thing we're trying to take our minds off of. Director by King Dogma Attitude Lars Von Trier, 'the Idiots' is his try to make a film in compliance with the Dogme '95 Manifesto film making movement which he started. He fails to live up to it. What is the Dogme'95 Manifesto? Dogme '95 also known as Dogme#2 were rules to create filmmaking based on the traditional values of story, acting, theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology following close to a Vow of Chastity rule. Like a whore in a nun's church, Lars broke the rules in this movie by bringing a prop onto the set and used special lighting. Von Trier also used background music (Le Cygne by Camille Saint-Saëns) in the film. The whole Dogme '95 movement collapse with this movie. Due to trying to live up to the Vows, the movie suffers from errors on screen such as boom mics or cameraman getting into the shots. The idiots also marks the second film in von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy, which includes Breaking the Waves (1996) and Dancer in the Dark (2000) which had a woman put into wickedness actions. The woman in this one is Karen (Bodil Jørgensen) who is taken some interest in an anti-bourgeois group, leaded by Stoffer (Jens Albinus), whom spend their time acting like mentally disabled people in public to challenge the establishment through provocation. The idiots start to see that with they can get away with a lot with playing dumb, and see a romantic ideal of being disability gives until reality hit them hard. The movie is spoken in Danish, but I can't understand the message they are trying to say with this film. I can't decide if that dogma filmmaking method is admirable or intentionally hamstringing itself arbitrarily. The characters are unlikeable. The mocking of Down syndrome is rude. Then there is the pointless gangbang scene. That part of the film was pure hardcore porn. I know Lars Von Trier lived in nudist commune environment and yes, I know Danish has more lax attitude towards nudity and sex than the US apparently has by comparison, but honestly what was the point of that scene? It felt out of place. I felt that the Gruppeknald scene was just there to feed Lars Von Tier's pervert ego. Trine Michelsen is only in the movie for this scene since she is a porn star. Not a big porn star, but more importantly she is the daughter of the most influential Danish movie critic at the time Ole Michelsen. Ole Michelsen is famous for saying he reviews all types of movies except the type his daughter stars in. Lars von Trier makes a cameo in his movie in exactly just for this scene, by having Ole Michelsen was forced to review a movie that has the director sleeping with his daughter. That's pretty crude. For me, the idea that if someone is broken. I should be able to sympathize with their horrible behavior that demeans a group human beings that are already in an oppressed position to begin with is just no. That ending did nothing for me. I didn't feel sorry for any of them at all. This is not an art for art sakes, or whatever they made up to sound sophisticated movie, it's Z Grade exploitation either desperately trying or pretending to have a meaning. Mange tak, Lars. You made a pretty horrible movie.

Erik Olson After viewing the movie The Idiots, by Lars Von Trier, I found that there were many themes evident in the movie as well as many dogma 95 techniques used as well. The Idiots was an almost documentary-like film about a group of individuals that all were staying in Stoffer's uncles house that he was supposed to be trying to sell. Instead of selling the house he invited over some of his friends and they all decided to find their "inner idiot" by "spassing," also known as acting disabled or more blatantly… retarded. They do this both in public and in Stoffer's house and began to cross the line or make the viewers feel uncomfortable after the scene in the factory. Karen, who we are introduced to in the restaurant in the first scene, begins to find her inner idiot after staying at the house for two weeks and is actually the only one to act like an idiot in front of her family at the end of the movie, which was very surprising to me and I'm sure many other people that viewed this film. Some of the themes I found in this film were as follows: public dysfunction, community, confrontation with inner self, freedom, and retardation. Public dysfunction I found to be the main theme due to the fact that the majority of the movie was based around the group of characters acting retarded in public. Next there was a sense of community on the house and when they performed their stunts or acts in public. Confrontation with inner self was another prevalent theme in the film, because the characters were all on a mission to find their "inner idiot." As the characters tried finding their inner selves, this brought up the theme of freedom and the ability to act and say what the wanted too throughout the film. The last theme was retardation, which the film is built around as they are acting retarded both in public and at Stoffer's uncle's house. The key characters in the film were Stoffer, Karen, Susanne, Katrine, Henrik, Axel, Jeppe, and Josephine. Next I am going to talk about the cinematic techniques utilized throughout the film. Since this is considered a Danish Dogma 95 film, there are certain guidelines and rules that Von Trier had to follow. The most noticeable of the techniques was definitely the usage of hand held cameras. The scene that comes to mind when you can really see this is when they are throwing a spass birthday party for Stoffer and they are all running naked in the yard. Also another scene where it is easy to tell that the cameras are hand held is in the factory when the van is leaving. Each step the factory tour guide takes, the camera bounces along with him. Another prevalent theme is the fact that there was never any music being played in the background of the film. Also, we never saw any weapons or murder because it would have had to have been real. Some background information on the film I found was that the movie takes place in Copenhagen, which is the birthplace of Von Trier. This may be the case because he is afraid of flying and is forced to drive to wherever a movie is being filmed. Also, Von Trier's parents were nudists, so perhaps he was a fan of nudity in films because he was so accustomed to being around naked people and was very comfortable with filming and incorporating nudity into his films. The last piece of background information I found was that this film was written in four days, which on one hand is incredible, but at the same time in my opinion could be why I did not take a liking to the movie at all. Lastly, I am going to talk about my personal opinion about the movie. To begin, I will say that this was one of those movies that I will never set aside two hours to watch ever again. The beginning of the movie was funny up until right after the factory. After the factory scene I felt that the movie was very repetitive and I was having a lot of trouble sitting in my seat. There were a few scenes that were painful to sit through and made me uncomfortable such as the scene where they were hanging out with actual handicapped people and spassing with them, which in my opinion, crossed any ethical lines that had not already been crossed in the film. To continue, I can see why films like these are not available or screened in the United States, because the film was very offensive and emotionally traumatizing. Lastly, however, I thought the acting was very good and I was impressed with how the actors were able to keep their composer and not laugh while spassing in public. In conclusion, the film The Idiots was a unique film with an interesting plot, but I would never watch the movie again in the future. If I had to recommend the movie to another individual, I would say that it is a movie you can watch once, but will probably never watch again.