The cinema film of THE IDIOTS has been classified by the BBFC as '18' without cuts.
This challenging art film, in Danish, concerns a group of young people who have formed a commune founded on 'anti-middle class ideology'. As part of that philosophy, they pretend to be 'idiots' (i.e. people with learning difficulties) and behave accordingly in public places.
The BBFC considered the possible offensiveness of this behaviour to members of the public who are disabled, and to those who are concerned with them. The view of the film, taken as a whole, is however a positive and sensitive one - particularly when real disabled characters are involved. The 'idiot' behaviour is most specifically a means for the young people of taking refuge from society and a token of their abdication from it.
The BBFC also considered the public acceptability of a very short but explicit shot of sexual behaviour. The BBFC's draft classification guidelines, published in July last year, permit images of real sex in '18' rated films or videos providing they are brief and justified by context. There are precedents for content of this kind (notably the widely shown Japanese film AI NO CORRIDA / IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES), but it requires the clearest justification. The particular scene in THE IDIOTS represents the critical point at which the commune oversteps its own boundaries of behaviour and begins to fall apart. Given the brevity of the image, and its importance within the narrative structure of the film, the BBFC concluded that sufficient justification existed to satisfy the standard set by the guidelines.
Andreas Whittam Smith - President
Robin Duval - Director