Durak

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.