tmdaines The setup is fairly simple, during a violet domestic dispute about stolen money that serves as the film's prologue, a water pipe bursts. The whole scene underscores what is to come: a tale of a corrupt society teetering on the brink of disaster socially, economically and politically.The hero of the film, Dima, the "durak" (fool) of the title of the film, is a bright young plumber on the way up in the world. After inspecting the damage, he soon realises that the burst pipe is merely evidence of a much larger issue: the entire block of flats is falling apart and will do so in 24 hours. While this should have been rectified during regular renovations of the building, the funds to do so were skimmed off the top by the local head of the housing organisation.In response, Dima goes right to the very top of the provincial town in an attempt to save the lives of the occupants. Is anyone going to be motivated to act, however, if they have already been bleeding the system dry until now? Perhaps covering their own backs will prove the only motivation.A brilliant film: one where you truly don't know whether to laugh or cry. From my time in Ukraine though, I dread just how accurate this slice of modern small town Russian life is.

Mark Mellon 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?

Lee Eisenberg Yuri Bykov's "Durak" ("The Fool" in English) looks as the current state of affairs in Russia. This story of a plumber facing an intractable bureaucracy when he tries to draw people's attention to a precarious apartment building is merely one look into an oligarchic society that's seen little infrastructural and political advancement since the Soviet collapse. Indeed, the city government seems as hopeless as the private citizens. The truth is, none of this should come as a surprise. Boris Yeltsin turned Russia into a kleptocracy. Vladimir Putin stabilized the economy but restored the Soviet-era authoritarianism. Corruption has dominated the country ever since the USSR collapsed (and was certainly widespread in Soviet times)."The Fool" is mostly an indictment of Putin's Russia, but can be seen as an indictment of any society in which corruption is so ingrained that the citizens practically accept it. Worth seeing.

marine-core 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.».