Дурак (original title)
116min | Crime, Drama, Thriller | 11 December 2014
Director: Yuriy Bykov
Writer: Yuriy Bykov
Stars: Artyom Bystrov, Natalya Surkova, Yuriy Tsurilo
Dima Nikitin is an ordinary honest plumber who suddenly decides to face the corrupt system of local politics in order to save the lives of 800 inhabitants of an old dormitory, which is about to collapse.
One's first reaction is that the mayor, Nina Galaganova (Gulag?), or "mama" (played brilliantly by Natalia Surkova), as she's called by her helpers, in the ringleader. And in a sense, she is. But she is only as bad as anyone else. There's a very good example of this when she asks the chief of police, of the fire-service and other top-dogs in the city administration: "Does one of you want to do my job of Mayor, then?". There is no reply. She has tough task as mayor. So from feeling anger at her one suddenly feels almost compassion - she is, after all, only doing the best she can. The film is saying the system is broke. And maybe it is. It's saying that corruption is a cancer than hits the whole system, from labourer to President, all the millions of people in between. You have to get your hands dirty to survive here, that's what we're told.
The film is full of good acting, good scripting, pertinent questions, cutting critiques of the system, beautiful imagery and clever metaphor. There are too many examples of the latter to note, but one such one is when a bureaucrat, still drunk from the party, claims that 120 million rubles of public money which has gone missing "could have been spent" by them, and she is wearing an enormous, extravagant fur around her neck as she says it, the pounding music of the party booming away behind! But how much does an intelligent film-crew owe their audience? To provide solutions to the miseries they are portraying, or just to portray them?
The premeditated cynicism is truly chilling.
And who is The Fool, after all? Is it a Dostoyevsky reference? Is it Nikitin, the plumber? Is it his father? Mother? Is it the mayor Nina, or her helpers? Is it everyone, or no one? You could write an essay on this movie...
Bleak.
