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The Idiots - Dogme 95

Stoffer, the house ideologist of a Danish residential community, urges the residents to free their "inner idiot. Outsider Karen goes along with this.

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Deze voorstelling maakt deel uit van Rialto Filmclub met als gastspreker deze maand Ernst-Jan Pfauth.

The Idiots

Karen, a middle-aged woman, is sitting by herself in a restaurant when she sees two apparently mentally handicapped boys. Those boys behave so annoyingly that the restaurant manager asks their supervisor to leave. One of those boys grabs Karen's hand and won't let go - Karen joins the boys in a cab. There she discovers that the boys' disabilities have been played. They turn out to be part of an anti-bourgeois residential community, made up of people who want to free their “inner idiot,” as house ideologue Stoffer describes it. He goes very far in this, too far according to some group members. But Karen, who initially followed the group with some reservation, is willing to go further.

This curious mix of drama and black humor is the second film made according to the rules of the Dogma manifesto. Director Lars von Trier preferred that the actors themselves play the explicit sex scenes, but they didn't want to. Against Dogma rules, he hired professional porn actors as body doubles to play those scenes.