Cannes Update: Friday, May 22, 1998 [Update #1]

by Harlan Jacobson

Cannes--In Danish filmmaker's Lars Von Trier's Idiots, the project is to reflect back to humanity how idiotic it is. Or at least to show a rebellious group of young men and women running amok and rubbing the old folks' faces in the idiocy they call manners, civilization and its discontents. That usually includes hypocrisy dressed up in authority but invariably is revealed as the idiocy we all know and love and with which we contend every day.
What idiocy, you ask? Surely, you know the feeling. Just look over there ... that's right... behind the boss' desk. Now, see... you knew all along that idiocy is rewarded!
Lots of penis shots, mostly soft, of course, with an occasional hardcore interlude assures a circumcised US release for Idiots, if at all.

But here's the best part. Well known for being phobic about travel, for having denounced Cannes and the 1991 jury president Roman Polanski as a midget for not giving him the Palme for his Zentropa (Europa overseas), and for his Breaking the Waves, which was just barely squeezed out of the Palme d'Or two years ago by Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies, Von Trier didn't show up to his press conference, Wednesday.
Instead, he had the producer read a statement which said in part, "Cannes is a wonderful place. I, however, find it a bit too much for me. So I must concentrate today's mental power to go to the screening tonight...Anyway, I'm in doubt about what to say... but you can contact me through my publicist. Lars Von Trier."
And the press applauded. Idiots.