Lars von Trier

Lars von Trier gives the purpose of The Idiots in his own words: the real business of Dogma and of this film alike is to let the people making a film surrender artistic control. The archive text also takes the speed of production from his claim rather than from a record; he says he wrote the screenplay in four days and shot it at a run. The same text names a pitfall that recurs with him: presenting mental disability as an untouched human essence. The writer finds it in the sacrificial-lamb heroine of Breaking the Waves and in The Kingdom's use of a couple with Down's syndrome as a prophetic chorus. Ryan Gilbey registers a change of strategy in Manderlay: where Dogville recruited Hollywood stars to get its anti-American campaign approved, the second part leans less on celebrity.