We’ve lost the art of provocation. Whether this is a result of audiences becoming more desensitised to controversial subjects, or the reduction in the number of filmmakers willing to push boundaries to the point where they risk their careers, we don’t see nearly enough feathers being ruffled anymore, which is close to a travesty, considering how this is often the root cause of so many reinventions of the medium. Society only evolves when we’ve been challenged and unsettled, since the more comfortable we get with the art we are consuming, the less likely we are to seek out those works that disturb and repulse. There are few names more important in the history of cinema than Lars Von Trier, a director who is the very definition of an acquired taste, some seeing him as an absolute visionary, others being far less inclined to appreciate his abstract and often very unconventional style, which extends to both the stories he tells and the aesthetic that accompanies them. I’ve always appreciated how many of his films, as complex as they may be in execution, can often be reduced to a single sentence when it comes to outlining the plot, since they are ultimately very simple works that somehow manage to redefine how cinema is made. This is most evident in the creation of the Dogme 95 movement, in which Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg drew up a manifesto that aimed to return cinema to its purest form, and the second film produced under this banner is Von Trier’s The Idiots (Danish: Idioterne), a delightfully perverse dark comedy that can be most appropriately summarised as being about a group of mischevious young people who spend their days wreaking havoc on the local community by pretending to be mentally disabled, for both financial gain and philosophical gratification. Even with such a short description, the deranged nature of this film is evident, and its only compounded by the director choosing to highlight themes that are, at the best of times, atrociously controversial and absolutely ingenious, making some scathing remarks on not only society as an inherently flawed construct built on fragile standards, as well as the way art is produced, both of which come into collision in this absolutely bizarre but unexpectedly hypnotic curio that is as shocking today as it was a over quarter of a century ago.

Many filmmakers who seem to have an interest in exploring more controversial subjects do so in a way that is at least artistically resonant and has some purpose behind it, often trying to maintain some level of decency by skirting around the edges of potentially troubling subject matter. In the case of Von Trier, he has built a career out of not only tackling provocative topics, but doing so in a way that is often quite unhinged and frankly beyond disturbing, which is why he is such a fascinating filmmaker, as well as one who is understandably extremely divisive. The purpose behind The Idiots was to explore society through the lens of a group of people who are by all accounts functional members of their community in terms of their physical and mental faculties, but who engage in a grotesque pantomime, which they refer to as spazzer, designed to reduce them to the point where they give off the illusion of being barely functional – this is where the film draws so much of its core inspiration, since it intends to be an absolutely deranged exploration of how society treats those who are indicated as being different. The subject of mental health is not an easy one to use as the foundation for any film, let alone one by a director who proudly leans into his reputation as being a master of provocation – but once we allow ourselves to get past the crudeness of the story, and realise that Von Trier is not mocking the disabled, but rather the able-bodied, neurotypical people who treat those on the margins with thinly-veiled contempt disguised under empathy, everything begins to fall into place. The purpose of the film is not always clear beyond this, since it takes the form of a series of connected vignettes, following these characters as they move through their community, leaving a trail of destruction as they attempt to play on the sympathies of whoever crosses their paths, using the socially-mandated beliefs that are almost universal as a tool for manipulation. It leads to a bitingly funny satire that never abates in how it lampoons society and its often arbitrary conventions.

Ultimately, it becomes quite obvious that The Idiots is less about the story and its themes as it is about the execution of its core ideas, which is where much of the discussion around this film has ultimately settled. While a full outline of every convention contained within their manifesto would take up too much time to replicate here, we can reduce the intentions of this movement into the simple premise that they were committed to returning the art of cinema to its most pure, undistilled form, one in which the focus was not on spectacle but rather message. Most of the time, we tend to view Dogme 95 as being very dour and overly serious, which isn’t helped by some of these films being incredibly harrowing and bleak – but what comes as a sincere surprise with The Idiot is how funny it manages to be, not despite the strict conventions but as a result of them. The focus on the core components of the cinematic medium – dialogue, performance and storytelling structure – gives Von Trier the chance to abandon anything unnecessary and instead embrace the unhinged madness nestled right at the heart of this narrative. The simple aesthetic, filmed entirely on handheld digital cameras (which lends the film a remarkably hideous appearance, something that the director leans heavily into), gives the film the appearance of raw home video footage, almost as if we’ve stumbled onto the most intimate moments in the daily routine of some truly questionable individuals. Von Trier is fascinated by human nature more than anything else, and through stripping away every ounce of sensationalism, he creates something truly compelling, a simple but evocative satire that is built around his belief that everyone is inherently voyeuristic to some degree, and that we will find unexpected value in what is essentially two hours of wacky emotional manipulation. Whether or not he succeeds in living up to the principles of his manifesto is a matter of interpretation, but it’s certainly rendered in a form that is frankly impossible to ignore, even through the best efforts of those who may not be quite as enamoured with it as others.

Much of the Dogme 95 movement was built around emphasising the performances, with the manifesto placing the actors in the central position as equally the authors of a piece as the director, a fascinating approach that may seem peculiar at first, but which ultimately does begin to make a lot of sense as we see the film progress and become more focused on its characters. Working with an ensemble of roughly a dozen core characters and then a few others that exist on the periphery, usually appearing in a single scene, The Idiots is a fascinating examination of society through a collaboration between some incredible actors, who exist at the perfect intersection between courageous and utterly demented, since it takes a mix of both to actually commit to the sheer madness the encompasses this entire film. The de facto leads are Jens Albinus as Stoffer, the leader of this collective who finds philosophical value in living his life masquerading as someone who has entirely committed to ridiculing one of the most vulnerable and misunderstood populations, and Bodil Jørgensen as Karen, the modest young woman who inadvertently gets pulled into one of the group’s bizarre acts, and finds herself gradually being drawn into the fray, having her own perspective corrupted as a result of her growing curiosity, which leads her to see the value in whatever deranged game these people play daily. The film focuses a lot of its efforts on creating memorable characters, while also never expending too much energy on trying to make them likeable. The Idiots may contain some of the most overly despicable characters of its era, since not only are most of these people truly immoral, they genuinely believe that they are both justified in their actions, and that it is their moral duty to actually reveal the darker side of society through engaging in this harrowing act of over-the-top chaos. It’s exceptionally strong work from the actors, and even if someone disagrees with how the film uses them, it’s impossible to deny their astonishing commitment to an absolutely bizarre and shocking premise.

There are innumerable ways to assess art and determine whether or not it is successful. However, one criterion is almost universal, which is that art is supposed to make the audience feel something – whether it’s delight, fear or repulsion; any work that does not inspire some degree of emotional reaction has failed in a significant way. The Idiots is a film in which dozens of conflicting emotions emerge, since it is a hideous work (both conceptually and in terms of its execution), but one that is entirely unforgettable, proving that good art will always make the viewer feel something, even if it is profound, unshakable discomfort. To even approach referring to this film as being a transcendent experience feels inappropriate, since this is not designed to be particularly endearing – but there’s something so extraordinarily compelling about it that makes the film almost entirely irresistible, almost as if the director is teasing us by creating this bitingly funny film that turns a harrowing and shocking premise into something that plays into our morbid curiosity to see just how far he can push such a controversial idea. The answer is that he seems to lack any concept of boundaries, since The Idiots goes about as far as it could, stopping just before it crosses the point of no return in terms of its moral foundation. To defer to a much more crude but relevant analogy, watching The Idiots is akin to seeing a disastrous accident – we know we should not be looking, but no matter how much we avert our gaze, we always find ourselves drawn to get a glimpse, even if just momentarily to satisfy our curiosity. Mercifully, Von Trier achieves this feeling through a relatively ethical production, choosing to target society more than specific members of it, focusing on the hypocrisy and outright banality of existence. There is something to be said about Von Trier being fascinated by the carnivalesque nature of contemporary life, something he weaves into many of his films, and while it is not his crowning achievement as much as Breaking the Waves or Dancer in the Dark may be (coincidentally both joining this film as the bookends in one of the director’s many loose thematic trilogies), but The Idiots is nonetheless a staggering achievement in its own right, and a film that should be seen to be believed – granted one has the patience and willpower to make it through this profoundly uncomfortable but entirely unforgettable experience.