The Idiots - Von Trier - A Kind of Film Review
My main problem with the film and the manifesto is the assumption that Von Trier is pushing limits when he really isn't. It seems to be more of a publicity vehicle, a method for gaining notoriety rather than challenging the manner of representation. His transgressions are pretty infantile – formally we get a shaky camera, unfocussed compositions, booms in shot (I mean, really!) and aberrant performances. Thematically we are confronted by perverse or repellent material and, horror of all horrors – images of copulating genitals. Rebellious? – has Von Trier ever seen any pornography?
The truth is his so called transgressions are only transgressive to traditional mainstream representations. So Von Trier is not challenging the limits of cinema but rather the paradigms of the mainstream. Now there's nothing wrong with that, that's good – Bunuel, Godard, Warhol, Waters – but for Christ sake just shut up and do it! Manifestos are for poseurs and unabombers – leave it to them and just get on making films.
Here's an idea, for free form cinema try not making ANY rules. What I find most intriguing about The Idiots is how the thematic aspects so keenly reflect the filmmaker. The idea of a commune of pretentious sophisticates whose concept of transgressing the ghastly bourgeoisie is by confronting them with unpleasantness which plays on their traditional beliefs and desire for control is, in my book, the film's great irony. Also, for the most part Von Trier ought to be congratulated for exposing himself to such an obvious criticism.
Unfortunately his representation of the middle-class characters who suffer the indignity of meeting the members of the commune as they are 'spazzing out' is strictly one-dimensional. Each of the other characters is mutli-dimensional and their participation in the activities and their conviction in it always remains complex. I think the final sequence is the film's major flaw – as it seems to me that Karen finds an inner grace as she seeks to break the shackles of middle-class society. This seems too pat, too handy a resolution which denies all of the complexity of her situation. Regardless of this, this is a very bold and very worthwhile film.
