Day of the Idiots

A specific case of unrequited love or a general impossibility of feeling in the external world? After a failed relationship, the main character turns to the only place where those who have ceased to accept the laws of the "normal" world belong - the mental institution becomes not a place where the most wretched are put, but a place where those who could not accept a world without love and other basic needs find their last refuge. It is precisely the characters on the edge of "madness" - Carole and the altruistic nurse - who are capable (or trying) of experiencing genuine openness to others. Let us notice the actions of representatives of the healthy world – the doctors and police - who try to extract people from this (perhaps beneficial) madness. But mental illness in the film naturally does not only appear in this positive aspect, and tragically, its negative aspects come into play (as the authors fearlessly showed...). This also shows Schroeter's critical social storyline in that the hunt for terrorism is clearly exposed as no less sick behavior, primarily in the fact that this hunt does not hesitate to rely on the testimony of someone whom they themselves have recognized as insane, thus exposing themselves as sick. The storyline with the medical staff and the police shows the contradictory logic of the story - Carole wants to remain insane, while others persuade her that she is healthy, and by acknowledging that she is healthy, she would also acknowledge the healthiness of the external world, a world that they themselves claim as theirs. We have seen that this world is a world permeated with latent madness (which is why Schroeter lets the film's scenery collapse in the end) - even this establishment wants to suppress its own madness by suppressing Carole's madness. (15/02/2015)