The Fool (2014)

Wonderful Movie

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The whole story of this film tortured good and evil of human nature in Russian society. The film begins in a dilapidated building where a man with a tattoo beat his wife and daughter because he could not find his case-dough. This building is the home to a group of desperate bottom-class people whose lives revolve around drug, alcoholism, quarrels, gambling and domestic violence. Suddenly, the heating pipe of this dilapidated building busted. Plums include Dima ran over to check, but found a more serious problem. This building's foundation was slowly collapsed and skewed, whose body has cracked two gaps. This building, which may be collapsed within 24 hours, is home to more than 800 households. And then, late at night the actor Dima hurried to put on his clothes, out of the house to the mayor's birthday party. With hands on the jacket pocket, he walked firmly on the desolate road, no turning back. Such a section shows the young fool, who is an ordinary person taking ordinary wages and self-learning architecture, bear a taste of the heroism. The behavior, which he walked in this way, is equivalent to embarked on the plot that an unimportant person fight against the total putrid social system of "no return", aiming to rescue the bottom class residents. Through some relationships, Dima found the mayor of the town, as well as the relevant ministers, and told the situation of the dilapidated building. After investigation, these corrupt officials admitted that this building was about to collapse. However, in the face of human life and interests, those corrupt bureaucracies had made a brutal choice.The film plot reverse several times, meaning that the story was falling into a darker situation. The Dima's intention to save the inhabitants gradually was evolved into a group of politicians fighting, those who were originally singing the praises of each other politicians, but instantly tore skins, shirk the responsibility, ignoring 800 lives, and even assassinated two officials in their gang.The film reveals the director attitude is very ambiguous, or a very pessimistic treatment. At the hazard of his life, Dima called down all the inhabitant from the first floor to the ninth floor of the dilapidated building. However, the first reflection of the most people was not Thanksgiving, but doubt. And then the most brutally beat Dima hardly. The irony was that the next one to the battle was also hurt. The director hinted that the resident in the building was indeed hopeless, and was too obstinate to be awakened on the brink of death. Finally, Dima was helpless abandoned near the dangerous building which would collapse. From three aspects to I would discuss the film to show my thoughts. Firstly, talking about the dangerous building, in where the vertical and horizontal cracks spread from the ground, like centipede plated outside the building. In fact, this dilapidated building can be considered as a mirror map to reflect the corruption, decline, emptiness and darkness of the government system. As for the tilt of this dangerous building naturally had not been repaired repeat, not to mention that the collapse of the national system was underway. Secondly, talking the bureaucrats, whose dress splendidly and squander at the Mayor's birthday party. Government placement costs were swallowed by the officials, while the bottom due to the system's irresistible force stepped into extinction. It is not difficult to imagine the direction of the national conditions of the whole country, irresistible sense of trembling hit in audiences' heart for a long time not to retreat. The corrupt bureaucratic system would lead to the brutal assassination from each official, which had been demonstrated in the plot that Dima witnessed and almost was killed in a dirt thing that the female Mayor shirked her responsibility by killing the head of architecture department and the head of fire department, who were the victim of political struggle.Finally, the bottom of the people's ignorance and insensitivity lead the audience to despair and chilling, who are the real "The Fool". In the dark of the community, the money right was first. Their children still like them, continue to curl up in the dangerous building to die. But the people living in such a bad situation, it is not only because of officials, but also their inaction Generally, the dangerous building, Numbness of the ignorant people and the brutal bureaucracy who escaped responsibility in this film, while there is also the kindness and courage of Dima, proves that Russia's society currently has too many dark sides which in China can be occurred.

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 evilness is partly the result of trickle-down evilness 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 flowers that attempt to grow in sewage, and what happens to them, 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, but mostly 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.

Durak is a gem of a movie. It showcases a rare combination of suspense and philosophical questioning, rendering it a very entertaining film that leaves you thinking about it way past the end credits.The characters in Durak are well developed, even those that do not get a lot of screen time. We get to know them, see how they live, understand their priorities and their motives. Deeper than that though, where the movie really excels is in exposing the nature and mighty power of the highly entangled system of corruption and how each individual character is both its co-creator and its puppet.In a city with a corrupt council, a 9-floor high building block is about to collapse. It needs to be urgently evacuated. The corrupt city officials face the prospect of criminal proceedings against them if hundreds of tenants die under the rubles. Will they be able to rise above the profitable network of kickbacks and favors that they have been milking for a long time? Or have they been diving too deep into the sweet scum of corruption to get into the surface on time to actually do something useful for their poor citizens?What about the poor citizens themselves? Living for decades in a dilapidated building under miserable circumstances, one would guess that change is what they desperately need. But 30 years is a long time. It is time enough for people to get used to the situation, to get to know to hate it, but also to cling to it at the same time as the only tangible piece of reality that still belongs to them. Reality in the form of a derelict pile of bricks that nevertheless stands as a barrier between their life on the one hand and death lurking in the snowy streets on the other. A pile of bricks where corruption also thrives, with a thread made of vodka and violence menacing the residents but also structuring the network of reality around them. Will they be willing to forgo everything and start anew or are they also too entangled to a mighty system of their own, unable to leave it behind even in the prospect of imminent death?The force that poses these questions and stirs things up is the protagonist, Durak. He sees reality as it is and is determined to do something about it. He has no other choice, letting things be and following the song of the Sirenes of corruption is just not like him. He is the Socratean fly that sends ripples through the system, that forces the system to face its own stink and atrocity. What does that make him? The Hero or the Fool?Do not be mistaken and take a comfortable distance from this movie, classifying it as an interesting depiction of corruption in Russia. This is not about Russia, this movie is about you. In whatever place you might live, it's you that is also noticing the web of corruption around you and the injustice, the desperation and the misery that it causes. It's you that decides to silently take part in it, in little or greater measure, or at least let it be and try to make a living somehow. It's you that keeps thinking from time to time that someone needs to do something about it all, that you need to take action to help people, to help yourself. But what would that make you? The Hero or Durak, the Fool?

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.».