Die Schlacht der Idioten

In this outrageous short - shot for the inauguration of the movie organ at the Film Institute in Duesseldorf, Germany - Schlingensief demonstrates that he's quite able to put his disjunctive, aggressive punk style to a purpose. Filmed in the manner of a silent movie, complete with all the breaks, smears and distortions of an eighty-year-old copy, this film lumps together quite a weird amount of characters. A vampire (Kier), an Indian chief (Edel) and various other cliche figures lifted from the silent film repertoire struggle to get out of their movies and fight for "Queen Quelly". The film thereby does not only relate to film history, but to Schlingensiefs personal history of film reception: The characters also seem to stem from a child's imagination, consequently ending up in a big mess on a playground.

Like most of Schlingensief's films, this one is deliberately disgusting, funny, highly conscious of its form and powerful.