Дурак

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.

Director:

Yuriy Bykov

Writer:

Yuriy Bykov

Stars:

Artyom Bystrov, Natalya Surkova, Yuriy Tsurilo

Storyline

The Fool is a movie about a simple plumber. An honest man, he is up against an entire system of corrupted bureaucrats. At stake are the lives of 800 inhabitants of an old dorm that is at risk of collapsing within the span of the night. Dima Nikitin is a simple and honest guy, a foreman of a repair team at a provincial housing service. Nothing really makes him stand out among the rest. It's only the unusual combination of honesty and integrity that makes others perceive him as somewhat weird.In the little town there is a notorious dorm, inhabited mainly by drunkards and outcasts. one night the pipes burst at the dorm. After arriving at the scene, Nikitin discovers that things are way more serious - the building will not stand through the night. People need to be evacuated immediately. Fighting the red tape, Nikitin sets off on a night Odyssey around the town authorities.

User Reviews

 

good vs. EVIL in Russia

22 July 2016 | by kyoozo (Canada) – See all my reviews

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.