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The Idiots
Idioterne
1998 110 min Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands R 18+
★6.7
Comedy, Drama
Director: Lars von Trier
Trailers
EN
EN
Description
A group of people gather at a Copenhagen suburban home to break all the limitations and to bring out the 'inner idiot' in themselves.
Budget:
$2.5M
Worldwide:
$7,200
Starring
Bodil Jørgensen
Actor
Jens Albinus
Actor
Anne Louise Hassing
Actor
Awards
European Film Awards 1998
— Best Screenplay
Cannes Film Festival 1998
— Palme d'Or
Key opinion
Idiots is a provocative, polarizing piece of cinema that employs the Dogme 95 manifesto to critique societal norms and bourgeois stagnation. While its raw, pseudo-documentary style and existential themes earn praise for their emotional intensity, the film's abrasive subject matter and nihilistic exploration of freedom divide viewers.
| Direction | The Dogme 95 production constraints—specifically the handheld camera and natural lighting—successfully cultivate a raw, documentary-like aesthetic that heightens the film's realism. | |
| Acting | Bodil Jørgensen and Jens Albinus deliver profoundly authentic performances that anchor the group's erratic behavior in genuine, palpable human emotion. | |
| Theme | The film functions as a compelling thematic critique of modern social institutions, successfully challenging the audience to reconsider their own definitions of "normalcy." | |
| Screenplay | The narrative structure is polarizing; some viewers find the chaotic, "inner idiot" premise to be a profound philosophical experiment, while others perceive it as a hollow and self-indulgent exercise in ego. | |
| Ending | Opinions on the film's conclusion are split: some interpret the final scenes as a tragic, coherent revelation of the characters' isolation, while others find the narrative resolution to be ambiguous and undermining of the director's central thesis. |