The Fool (2014 film)

The Fool (Russian: Дурак', translit. Durak) is a 2014 Russian drama film written and directed by Yuri Bykov. It had its international premiere at the 2014 Locarno International Film Festival, where it won the prize for best actor.

This is the third film of writer and director Yury Bykov.

Background

An explosive combination of highly personal moral drama and a wider, scathing portrait of a country in which corruption and greed seem to be the only shared values left, this well-oiled narrative machine is further aided by a clever ticking-clock mechanism that actually ratchets up the tension the longer the characters’ vodka-soaked, blame-game speeches are allowed to go on.

Plot

A Russian plumber, Dima Nikitin, is also a municipal repair-crew chief in an unnamed Russian town that’s not even 40 years old, though some of the city’s housing blocks are already in a grave state of disrepair. A routine burst bathroom pipe in one of the rickety communal housing buildings unearths a much larger problem, as the exterior wall behind the pipe has cracked and started to shift. When Nikitin goes outside to inspect the matter, he realizes the building has fissured from the ground right up to the ninth and last floor.

Though it’s not officially part of his district, Dima’s sense of personal responsibility gets the better of him in the middle of the night and he decides to go and talk to the higher-ups, especially after he calculates how much time is left for a construction of that height before it splits in two and crumbles — which turns out to be less than 24 hours.

The knowledge that the 800 inhabitants might go down with the building has Dima racing to the 50th birthday party of Nina Galaganova, the town’s imperious mayor, to convince her to evacuate the building. He thus bypasses his direct boss, the corrupt inspector of public housing, Fedotov, who only supplied a coat of paint the last time he received funds for a major overhaul, preferring to funnel the money into work on his daughter's personal residence. Nina’s extended, behind-closed-doors meeting with Dima, Fedotov and heads of several other departments, including the fire brigade, become a nervous meeting but it soon becomes clear that the worst fears of Dima’s wife about the city council’s deep-seated dishonesty and corruption are true. The feverish gathering takes place in a meeting room next to the hotel restaurant where Nina’s birthday party is still in full swing, with the thumping music filtering into the room like a severe headache that just won’t go away.

Nina sends the inspector of public housing Fedotov, as well another departmental head, Matugin, to assess the damage with Dima. Though initially skeptical, the officials soon accept that the building will indeed fall, and return to report this to the mayor. It is realised that an evacuation of this scale and subsequent building collapse would cause a financial review, and that years of embezzlement by the mayor and her subordinates would be uncovered. Arrangements begin to evacuate the inhabitants, but are suddenly called off by Nina, who gets into a car and visits a building manager in an adjacent suburb. She pleads with him to provide her with temporary housing for the house's inhabitants, but he refuses, citing a number of reasons.

Nina makes the decision to lay the blame for the building collapse on Fedotov and Matugin, and, together with Dima, they are told by the police chief that arrangements are being made for evacuation. The trio are put into a police van under the guise of travelling to the building site and are taken to a remote location on the city outskirts. Fedotov pleads with the policemen to release Dima, and they reluctantly agree, instructing him to leave the city with his family immediately. Matugin and Fedotov are shot.

Dima takes his wife and son and drives away, under the impression that the building is being evacuated. However, as they drive past it, Dima realises that the residents are still sleeping and no attempts at evacuation are being made. A row with his wife, who wants to leave because the people in the building are "nobody to us", ensues, and Dima tells her to leave. She drives away, leaving Dima behind.

Dima rushes into the building and evacuates the inhabitants one by one, telling them that the building is about to collapse. Eventually, he is able to remove everybody from the building, but the tenants violently beat him and return to the building, leaving Dima splayed out and unconscious.

Cast

• Artyom Bystrov as Dima Nikitin
• Natalia Surkova as Nina Galaganova
• Boris Nevzorov as Federotov

Awards and Nominations

• Gorin Prize for the Best Script, Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr in Sochi, 2014 ^[5]
• Best Actor Leopard, awarded to Artyom Bystrov, Locarno International Film Festival, 2014 ^[6][7]
• Ecumenical Prize, Locarno International Film Festival, 2014 ^[6]
• Junior Jury Award, First Prize, Locarno International Film Festival, 2014 ^[6]
• Atlas d’Argent de la mise en scène (silver prize), Arras Film Festival, 2014 ^[8][9]
• Audience Choice Award, Arras Film Festival, 2014 ^[8]
• Young Jury Prize, Arras Film Festival, 2014 ^[8]
• Flèche de Cristal, Festival de cinéma européen des Arcs, 2014 ^[10]
• Best Cinematography Prize, awarded to Kirill Klepalov, Festival de cinéma européen des Arcs, 2014 ^[10]
• Youth Jury Award, Festival de cinéma européen des Arcs, 2014 ^[10]

References

External links

• The Fool at the Internet Movie Database
• Film Review: 'The Fool'