Lars von Trier – ‘The Idiots’
We might think on the surface that there’s absolutely no way that Lars von Trier would be able to make his 1998 black comedy-drama The Idiots today, even if the director himself seems to have carved out a reputation that leaves him impervious to overt criticism. But if we scratch beneath that thin veneer of offence in the film, we find far more lies in waiting.
After all, von Trier is known to be something of a provocateur, and his immediate provocation in The Idiots is at the core of its narrative. We find a group of adults pretending to be severely mentally impaired to release their “inner idiot”, free themselves from their day-to-day responsibilities – emotional or vocational – and find a new truth within.
Now, of course, there’s a certain shock factor that arrives with mentally well people merely pretending to be disabled in public, and there are several moments, particularly at the beginning of the film, that provide some of von Trier’s all-time outright funniest. Take, for instance, the group visiting a manufacturing warehouse only for the manager to watch one of them get in the van to drive them all home and crash into the bushes or a day trip to the swimming pool, where the group’s leader, Stoffer, drools in the shower with an erection.
But beyond the comedy that is certainly present in the film’s first half, there is a far deeper and more tragic meaning at play. After all, each of the group has their own personal reasons for “spassing”, as they so call their actions. Stoffer, for example, wants to move away from the Danish bourgeois life he is clearly a part of; an artist sees it as a creative project and a doctor as an examination of human behaviour.
The most interesting of the group, though, is the most recent to join, Karen, who we find alone in a restaurant a small group of the “spassers” visits at the film’s beginning. Without any initial rhyme or reason, Karen decides to join the group, and it is slowly revealed to us that she is in the throes of a severe traumatic and tragic event. Eventually, Karen decides to “spas” herself, and when she does, the effect it has on her healing is given the utmost profundity.
After all, one way to hide from problems is to bury one’s head in the sand, to not confront it with emotion nor rationality, and this seems to pay off for several members of the group, at least for a short while. However, for the cultish and sometimes dogmatic leader Stoffer, the challenge of “spassing” does not go far enough into actual fruition, and when certain members of the group cannot finally sever themselves from their everyday lives, he deems the entire project something of a failure.
Regarding aesthetics, von Trier delivers a film fully in line with his Dogme 95 Manifesto, telling a narrative through as straightforward means as possible. This insistence has The Idiots arrive with a focus on reality, and the result is a film that draws an audience in, believing in dialogue and action, amplified by moments of documentary and handheld camerawork. Quite simply, von Trier’s film is an emotional masterpiece, and the alluring provocation is something to suck you in before paving the way for a deeper and more significant meaning.
It can be easy to point the finger at von Trier for that initial provocation, but beneath the surface, there lies a beauty quite unlike any of his other efforts. There’s an examination of the position of disabled people in a predominantly non-disabled world, which is relatively progressive for the mid-1990s, and ultimately, The Idiots is perhaps the Danish filmmaker’s unknowing masterpiece, more subtle than the likes of Antichrist and Melancholia, but not lacking in its enduring impact.
