The Fool

The Russian film Durak (2014/II) was shown in the U.S. with the title "The Fool." Yuriy Bykov was the writer and director. The overall theme is consistent with Dostoevsky's "The Idiot." In that novel, Prince Lyov Nikolayevich Myshkin is an honest, kind, helpful person. No once can believe that anyone could truly be this good, and that's why the call him an idiot.

In a small Russian city, Syn Dimy (played by Gordey Kobzev) is also an honest, kind, helpful person, and no one respects him for it. He's a low- ranking foreman of a municipal plumbing repair crew. Syn discovers that one of the municipal housing units is about to collapse. He reports this to the authorities, but no one wants to hear it.

In a previous film by Bykov--The Major--we learned that the police department was a cesspool of corruption. In The Fool, we learn that the entire municipal system is based on corruption. Everyone is on the take. No one really cares about the 820 people in the building. The only question is how to continue in positions of power and affluence after the building collapses.

This is a brilliant, but very grim film. There's no humor in it. We saw it in the excellent Dryden Theatre at The George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY. It's primarily set indoors--in the night club where the mayor is celebrating her 50th birthday, or in the doomed building, which houses very poor, very angry people. It will work well on the small screen. It's a movie you don't want to miss. Find it an see it.

During a nightly emergency repair a plumber discovers that the appartment building is in a really bad shape and is about to collapse. He comes into action but the municipal administration and the real estate mafia (who turn out to be connected inseparably) let their own (financial) interests prevail.

"Durak" is of the same year as "Leviathan" (2014, Andret Zvyagintsev) and about the same subject (real estate corruption in Russia). "Durak" is a bit less philosophical but it has a thriller element in the form of the appartment building that can collapse every minute.

In Dutch "Doerak" means "rascal". In Russian "Durak" means "fool". The title of the film says something about the Russian society, because in Western eyes the main charachter of the film is not a fool but a hero. In Russia however, they look different at these things. Not only is the real estate maffia not amused with the actions of the pluber, so are his wife (you bring the family into danger) and the occupants of the appartment building (leave us alone).

The appartment building may be in danger of collapsing, the Russian society has already collapsed in the film, permeated as it is with cynism in all layers of society.

By the way, also in the Western world there are accidents attributable to deferred maintenance. Remember the 2017 fire in the Grenfelltower (England), an appartment building with mainly poor occupants and poor fire safety.

The setup is fairly simple, during a violet domestic dispute about stolen money that serves as the film's prologue, a water pipe bursts. The whole scene underscores what is to come: a tale of a corrupt society teetering on the brink of disaster socially, economically and politically.

The hero of the film, Dima, the "durak" (fool) of the title of the film, is a bright young plumber on the way up in the world. After inspecting the damage, he soon realises that the burst pipe is merely evidence of a much larger issue: the entire block of flats is falling apart and will do so in 24 hours. While this should have been rectified during regular renovations of the building, the funds to do so were skimmed off the top by the local head of the housing organisation.

In response, Dima goes right to the very top of the provincial town in an attempt to save the lives of the occupants. Is anyone going to be motivated to act, however, if they have already been bleeding the system dry until now? Perhaps covering their own backs will prove the only motivation.

A brilliant film: one where you truly don't know whether to laugh or cry. From my time in Ukraine though, I dread just how accurate this slice of modern small town Russian life is.

This movie could be a documentary on Russian society, it's hopes and fears, it's ideology, the eternal conflict between people and government officials, the dark and hopeless landscape of human minds where one can still choose to be human.

As a Russian myself, having lived in my homeland for 34 years already, I can say that there's nothing that will tell you more about Russians than this movie. It is not a heroic WW2 nonsense, not a dumb czar era pictures, but modern life as it is. The things you will see in the film are definitely depressing and hopeless, showing the state of decay in society «God created this kind of life and he made us live it.».

The 2 questions I came away with after watching this extraordinary movie were, does this kind of thing really happen in Russia, and is this really what Russia is like? I contacted my only Russian acquaintance about this, and he said the movie is an accurate, though exaggerated, depiction of small-town Russia. I was curious about his comment about the movie taking place in a small town; Russians live in massive apartment buildings in small towns? In fact not a whole lot about this film is small-townish, at least to this Canadian outsider. It feels like an urban nightmare, mostly taking place in or around this huge apartment building teeming with people, at a restaurant that's teeming with people as well - because the local government is throwing a big party for themselves - or along built-up streets. The most glaring indication that the setting is indeed a small town is when the government heads all get together in a small room to discuss an emergency situation, and we are introduced to an unsavoury ragtag assortment of drunken schemers who happen to have absolute control over the local population. There is nothing urbane about these people. It's made clear in The Fool, however, that this fiefdom's vulgarity is partly the result of trickle-down vulgarity from the federal level, and there's an underlying despondency among some of the local government officials as they seemingly have no other choice but to be corrupt. So you do get glimpses of decency and humanity within the fiefdom. But how can decency and humanity win amidst the corrupt, cutthroat, dog-eat-dog reality in modern Russia from the top down to the bottom. The Fool is a tale of a flower that attempts to grow in sewage, and what happens to it, and it is the tale of how people as individuals are affected when evil reigns. Some become evil themselves, some try to resist evil entirely, most take the middle road. Beyond that, The Fool is a story about people just trying to do the best they can for themselves and their families, and be happy despite overwhelming odds, and despite hopelessness all around them.