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Finally got to see Lars von Trier's (er, excuse me, Dogme95's) "The Idiots" this weekend. It's a rather grueling affair and its lack of stateside distribution isn't too surprising (featuring, as it does, in addition to a constant string of humiliations and an extremely anti-PC premise, a distinctly European sensibility regarding close-ups of erect penises and group-sex penetration shots). The story revolves around Karen, a mysteriously withdrawn woman, and her attraction to a group of sex-crazed Marxists who confront what they see as the bourgois by invading neighborhoods en masse and wreaking havoc while pretending (and doing a fine job, I should add) to be mentally retarded. There's some flim-flammery regarding the liberation of the ego through these actions, but it doesn't hold; basically von Trier just lets his actors run amok, beginning as a farcical, Dada experiment and becoming increasingly sinister and disturbing as the sexual shenanigans reach fever pitch and the group's cammaraderie begins to disintegrate into personal squabbles and occasional dementia. All the Dogme tenets regarding primitivist, naturalist filmmaking are on display, which perhaps intentionally contributes to the picture's disturbing aspects. The final scene, where we discover Karen's previously obscured motivations may be the most pessimistic, cynical portrayal of personal growth yet slapped onto celluloid. Not a great film by any means (in addition to its muddled narrative and aesthetic terrorism, there are some pretty weak devices...the pseudo-documentary framing device is wisely jettisoned halfway through), but a very interesting experiment nonetheless (true to von Trier's schizophrenic m.o. - love or hate what he does, he's always out on a limb). Recommended, though with high reservations.
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