Jan Elle

With his first Dogma-95 film director Lars von Trier opens up a completely new film platform. With a mix of home-video and documentary styles the film tells the story of a group of young people who have decided to get to know their “inner-idiots” and thus not only facing and breaking their outer appearance but also their inner.

John and René are in their twenties, close friends but different enough for René to be nicknamed Thunderbird, while John remains just plain John. John feels irresistibly drawn into Thunderbird's orbit, but René isn't all flash. He actually longs to share John's plainness and quiet calm.

Fed up with his quarreling middle class parents, thirteen-year-old Jonas runs away from home. He seeks his freedom in the woods, where he befriends a girl his own age and a drunken ex-pilot, who offers him some warmth and understanding.