Just before breakfast this morning, I was talking about film with John: we were checking out some of Mark Kermode’s reviews, and his interview with Lars Von Trier cropped up. Von Trier is a director I first came across at university, but he hadn’t crossed my intellectual path since then. However, his name rung a bell as the guy who directed Das Idioten.

I vaguely remember trying to watch Das Idioten back in my room at university, but being so appalled by it that I gave up about twenty minutes in. This morning, though, I decided to give it another go: uni was over fifteen years ago, and I was kind of curious about it. Luckily, I found it on Amazon, and put it on while enjoying a delicious omelette.

Having just finished the film, it would seem that I have a lot of work to do and a lot to write. Watching as both a cinephile and disability rights activist/blogger, Das Idioten is a highly, highly problematic film, as provocative as it is troubling. It’s essentially about a commune of able-bodied people who see imitating people with learning difficulties as a form of social rebellion or even art. I mean, where do I even begin with that? The characters – and, by extension, the director – seem to think that what they are doing is socially right and justified, rather than a crass, repugnant form of mockery of one of the most oppressed sections of society. The film framed it as commentary or political expression rather than discrimination.

I have known people with conditions like severe autism or PMLD who behaved in the way the characters in the film were trying to imitate. Many live difficult, confused lives barely being able to comprehend the world around them. To see such people being mocked, imitated and caricatured as they were in the film was gut-wrenchingly vile. Yet, when they wanted to, the characters were shown to revert to their normal, able-bodied selves, as if ‘spazzing’ was just something they could step in and out of. They were then shown to use this behaviour to manipulate others into things like paying for meals. The problem is, there seemed to be very little criticism of this repugnant behaviour, but instead the film seemed to present it as somehow political or artistic.

Let’s put it this way: if this film was focussed on any other minority – if these people were shown to be mimicking black or gay people for example, and justifying it as political activism – there would rightly be public outrage. Why, then, should I as a disabled man allow it to go unchallenged? Das Idioten may be about thirty years old, but when viewed in the light of contemporary civil rights activism, there is a hell of a lot which can and should be said about it. The question is, where do I start?

First things first, I need to go for a walk.