The Idiots follows a group of young adults who share a large house outside Copenhagen, a tendency toward over-education, and a fondness for pretending to be mentally deficient ("spassing," as they call it). Preferably in public, but just as often at home, they slacken their necks and jaws, talk in repetitive gutturals, and stare off moonfaced and drooling at whatever strikes their fancy. They're first seen causing upset at a restaurant; alone among the patrons, Karen (Bodil Jorgensen) responds warmly to these seemingly simple souls, but when she walks off with them she quickly learns their retardation is a sham. Initially offended by what she considers disrespectful behavior, Karen is nonetheless drawn into the circle.
Moving into the shared house, she receives patient but absolutist lectures on the importance and moral righteousness of playing at idiocy from Stoffer (Jens Albinus), the group's leader. (To his credit, von Trier is quite explicit about how the group's dynamics follow classic cult behavior.) It's about thumbing noses at the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie, of course, but also about personal contentment. The Idiot, Stoffer insists, is the real man of the future, desiring nothing, enraptured by the moment. What's the idea of a society that gets richer and richer, he asks, if it doesn't make anybody happier? It's perfectly appropriate then, that Karen initiates her first "spass" by being reborn in a pool, with childlike awe on her face at the mere fact that she floats.
Despite the cries of alarmist critics, The Idiots never degenerates into poking fun at the mentally handicapped--but that doesn't mean I liked it. On the contrary, while there are some nice moments here and there, and a handful of very funny scenes, boredom ultimately settles in to stay, primarily because the film is never offensive enough. For all the hackles it has raised, The Idiots feels like a modest, even apologetic effort. The shaky handheld camera is always inadvertently capturing boom mics or the cinematographer's shadow; Karen's sincere, teary farewell is heart-on-the-sleeve direct, and as clumsily written as a high-school love letter. In the press kit, von Trier practically brags that continuity in the movie is so poor, one character is called the wrong name throughout an entire scene (I confess I didn't catch this).
Hand in hand with this self-effacement comes an all-too-earnest desire for the film to actually do some good. So rather than ever turning the game on the audience, or making us complicit, The Idiots instead labors to connect with our emotions, which amounts to a number of boring, ridiculously melodramatic scenes. Does it matter how untraditional your shooting methods are if you have to resort to two young people in love being torn apart by a wicked father, dropped into the film for no other reason than to wreck their happiness? Of all the stipulations Dogme filmmakers agree to, perhaps the least remarked (though most important, having its own section after the infamous list of rules) is the admonition, "I am no longer an artist." This recalls Jean Eustache spending months at the editing table trying to make The Mother and the Whore seem unedited. But the similarity ends there; Eustache's masterpiece still burns, its rough, unfinished appearance essential to its disarming power. The Idiots just feels like Amateur Night, and it expects you to love it for it.
