Til De Idioter: The Dostoevskian message of Lars von Trier’s Idioterne.
Idioterne is set in a suburban neighborhood in Copenhagen. A group of middle-class deserters, living in an abandoned house, respond to their alienation by pretending to be mentally impaired in public settings, called “spazzing”. The aim of this commune of the fake impaired isn’t to be cruel. Each member is trying to get in touch with his or her own “inner idiot” — their pure and sad child lost behind society’s bourgeois facade. Such actions levy an attack on the technological age in which intelligence and professionalism has become an enslaving force.
Though fraught with messiness that at times feel self-defeating and performances that can seem more pretentious than profound, Von Trier’s Idioterne is the perfect essence of a film. Underneath its surface of flaws, lies a deeper resonance—a connection to the existential dilemmas that have long occupied thinkers like Fyodor Dostoevsky. Von Trier, consciously or not, mirrors themes found in Dostoevsky's The Idiot, exploring the beauty of innocence and the pursuit of happiness. The characters in Idioterne grapple with questions of what it means to truly embrace an idealized sense of purity in a world that punishes those who dare to be different—just as Dostoevsky’s protagonist, Prince Myshkin does.
The Beauty of Innocence
According to Von Trier and Dostoevsky, to pursue an ideal is to be naive. To apply an ideal is to be impractical. And yet to them, it is precisely that pursuit that defines our humanity. Von Trier likens the “inner idiot” to that of our innocence we had as children. To Von Trier, as vulgar the concept may be, the only way an adult could still carry a toddler’s innocent mannerisms and lack of expectational pressure is to be mentally impaired. The commune of spazzers therefore take on a role of mental impairment in order for the rest of society to understand their “innocent mannerisms” that they wish to conjure from their inner idiot.
Among the group in Idioterne, Karen, who is the protagonist, stands out as the embodiment of this principle. Unlike the others, who act out of rebellion or retaliation against societal norms, Karen engages with her "inner idiot" to heal, not to provoke. She mirrors Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin: Innocent, naive, forgiving. Von Trier stresses throughout the movie that Karen’s naivety is not a flaw, but a source of her strength. Her pursuit to fully embrace her naive and forgiving nature by employing her inner idiot is what sets her apart. She does not harbor the malice that weighs down the other characters and clouds their ability to embrace their inner idiot. For her, the chaotic methods of the Commune’s leader, Stoffer, actually work, not because they are sound, but because her heart is pure.
While Stoffer lashes out at society:
"They are the ones who poke fun"
Karen’s responses are strikingly different. She does not harbor hatred or frustration, but rather pursues her ideal of innocence for its own sake. Her love for the others is not based on what they represent, but on who they truly are.
“Being an idiot with you here was one of the best things I'd ever done. Jeppe, who is almost like a little child I might’ve had. Nana, who is so sweet and funny. And Miguel, who has such lovely eyes. And Ped who is such a clever man. And strong strong Katrine. And Susanne, who smiles at everyone so that the very heavens shine down upon us. I believe… I love you all more than I ever loved anybody.”
Prince Myshkin loves in a similar way. When encountering his village’s outcast, a woman who is also mentally impaired:
“Then I kissed her and said that she mustn’t think I had any evil intent, and that I kissed her not because I was in love with her, but because I was very sorry for her, and that I had never, from the beginning, thought of her as guilty but only as unhappy. It was then the children saw us, the whole lot of them. They began whistling, clapping their hands and laughing, and Marie ran away. I tried to speak to them, but they began throwing stones at me.”
Karen’s innocence allows her to love without conditions or judgment. She finds beauty in each person’s uniqueness, free from the expectations of society. Myshkin loves without any thought of how he may be perceived by others or their consequences. He loves because he sees something worth loving. Through Karen and Myshkin we learn that if loving others requires embracing naivety and impracticality, then being an "idiot" is perhaps the most human thing to be.
The Pursuit of Happiness
Von Trier wishes to challenge the idea that one must fit into society to feel fulfilled: one’s happiness should not have to be quantified by someone else. The tunnel vision we develop from grinding through daily life narrows our focus and causes suffering, blinding us to the beauty of life's individual moments. True fulfillment comes when we step back and appreciate life for what it is, not for what we hope to gain in the end.
Von Trier, through Stoffer, views those in society who condemn and outcast people without traditional or expected goals in life as snobs. People who are too pretentious to be happy. Too serious to truly let go of their inner inhibitions.
Karen asks Stoffer why the Commune spazzes.
Stoffer replies, “What’s the idea of a society getting richer and richer, when it doesn’t make anyone happier? In the stone age, all the idiots died. It doesn’t have to be like that nowadays. Being an idiot is a luxury, but also a step forward.”
As immature and pretentious it may seem, it does have a ray of wisdom. It seems the cycle of prosperity is to work harder and harder at obtaining the next success, beating the next opponent, and achieving the next goal. But like Stoffer says, what is the point? We live in an age with so much luxury and riches that a survival of the fittest mentality is no longer necessary. If being an “idiot” back then was a death sentence, being an “idiot” now might slow you down in a world too fast paced to be content.
For Prince Myshkin, he is plopped into a world full of debauchery, corruption, narcissism, and greed. A world where moving up in the social ladder is life’s sole purpose, and money is the key to life. Sound familiar? But Myshkin’s interactions with this corrupted world causes conflict. The other characters don’t seem to understand him at all or how to deal with him. Dostoevsky, through Myshkin, wants to portray the idealized and morally upright man in a world that could not understand innocence. What could the purpose of life be if not to gain power and respect? How could one be happy without others acknowledging your happiness?
Myshkin is questioned by a noble woman about his happiness. He replies, “[During my hospitalization] I was continually thinking about the life I would lead in the future. I wanted to know what life had in store for me.” He would look out into the scenery of Switzerland, the waterfalls, the mountains, the great trees, the sunlight. He would imagine at the end of the beautiful scenery a life and world full of meaning and happiness. As if a great town like Naples would have the key to life, and all he had to do was find that town. Yet Myshkin ends by saying he would rather believe he might even find a wealth of life in a prison.
The noblewoman compares Myshkin’s thinking to that of a cheapskate. In response, he says he could find meaning to his life even in prison is comparable to that of a wealthy cheapskate who cages themselves to being cheap despite having money to spend. Why have money when you can’t enjoy its purchasing power? In the same way, why would you apply the same fulfillment of your life in a prison cell when you know cities like Naples exist out there in the world? The noblewoman doesn’t understand that the meaning of life does not have to come from your environment but how you give your environment purpose. Myshkin believes that the key to finding purpose in your life is to give it purpose yourself, not to find it.
We all may have doubts about our purpose, about how we may make an impact on the world or society. How can we be more fulfilled in our lives? Like us, Karen asks Stoffer, “I just want to understand what I am doing here. Why am I so drawn to your community?”
And Stoffer answers her (and us) by saying, “Perhaps because there is a little idiot in there that wants to come out and have some company. Don’t you think so?”
Afterthought
Hating this film is easy. If Idioterne were simply a merciless, “let’s ridicule the retarded” provocation, the film would have been despicable. One might dismiss this film as substanceless and needlessly provocative on the first watch, then appreciate its beauties and poignant perspectives on the second. Lars Von Trier has been the holy fool in the world of cinema ever since his debut in 1984. The Danish director’s founding of the Dogme 95 movement cemented him as the infamous iconoclast that he is known for today. This manifesto was Von Trier’s radical response to what he saw as an increasing artificiality of mainstream cinema. He spearheaded a return to a more raw form of storytelling that placed emphasis on pure narrative and the human condition. He called for a strict protocol of using only handheld cameras, continuous chronological shots, no fake lighting, no post production music editing, and no props. Although the adherence to Dogme 95 can make this film distracting during scenes where you can see the boomstick or the camera in frame, I truly believe it makes up for it in its personality and thoughtfulness in individual scenes. The use of a shaky and handheld camera with little to no editing captures such raw emotion and immerses the watcher into a pure moment of the human condition. Many believe the director’s lofty goals for this film outpaced the medium’s ability to deliver. But I believe that the exact opposite is rather true: Idioterne would not have been able to tell such a provocatively powerful story had it not adhered to Dogme 95.
Perhaps Von Trier’s Dostoevskian message may not have been able to shine as poignantly as it did if he had used traditional filmmaking techniques.