Like foreign films? Like the weird? (Of course you do)So for this Christmas weekend, while the TV stations are showing the carols and crap sentimental movies, head down to the video store and get your hands on "The Idiots." Many of you know this movie. Rent it and watch it again. For those of you that haven't seen it - do yourself a favour. You'll be entertained.
Interview by Peter Øvig Knudsen - The Man Who Would Give Up Control
"In the weeks preceding shooting we worked a great deal on the spassing, and the cast became very fond of spassing. But gradually they simply got bored if they didn’t have to spass. And as an outsider, as time goes by you become quite unaffected by spassing, whereas at first it was pretty distracting to have someone drooling down your trousers.
The spassing bit finally functioned quite naturally, as did the nude scenes, which we had loads of. One morning I greeted the cast naked in the front drive and insisted that today was to be a nude day. No, we didn’t have any nudity problems."
IMDB site - Reviewer comments
Of course, be warned - this is EURO independent cinema, not American, which means it has a GENUINE edge - it's hardcore, in more ways than one. If your idea of "edgy" or "dangerous" is "Being John Malkovich" or "Boys Don't Cry", then you should probably avoid the Dogma-driven "The Idiots", in which full-frontal nudity is de rigeur (and on-camera urination and sexual penetration occur as well).
But if you want a funny, dirty, smart, irritating, and even infuriating satire of both the bourgeoisie and the bohemians who oppose it, then "The Idiots" is for you. von Trier has assembled a furiously talented cast of unknowns to spin this tale of a Danish commune that pretends - to the horror of the middle class masses that surround it - to be a private institution for "retards" and "spastics".This is alternately funny, disgusting, and angering - but where the film becomes great is in its dissection of the bohemian mini-society that's perpetrating the big hoax.
3 comments:
I love Von Trier films! Christian and I went to see The Idiots at the Palace Theatre in Leichhardt back when it was first released. The hand-held camera technique was interesting (Christian got motion sick and had to leave the cinema before the film ended).
Funnily enough, when we went to see Dancer in the Dark (my favourite Von Trier film) a few years later he had the same reaction. Pussy.
Though I guess I shouldn't necessarily gloat: the first 10 minutes of Shaving Ryan's Privates gave me a migraine.
Dancer in the Dark is THE MOST DEPRESSING FILM EVER!!!!
That it may be (I still cry for most of it when I watch it, even though I've seen it loads of times... and no, that's not just because I'm a chick), however it is still an important film. Von Trier is known to make make movies that make a statement, and I think Dancer in the Dark makes a very good statement against the death penalty (and the music in it is fantastic).
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