Review of The Fool (2014)
Seen in 2025.
On an ordinary winter day, a hot-water pipe suddenly ruptures on a man who is beating his wife and daughter. The foreman of a municipal plumbing repair crew is called to the building, which is outside his regular district. It’s an old dormitory in an unnamed Russian town, built in a hurry, on clay. Maintenance has been neglected. Inspectors have been bribed or ignored. The foreman, who is studying construction to make an honest career for himself, takes a look around.
The whole thing looks ready to come down on itself at any moment. There are 800 people inside, but nobody has told them, and nobody’s going to take the blame.
I recognize the gritty, funereal pessimism of Letters from a Dead Man (1986) in this more conventional metaphor for Russian society. The centrepiece debate inside the municipal governing board is brilliant: Kleptocrat stooges gingerly kick the can down the road one more time. It isn’t necessarily realistic or politically productive to make these films, but it works very well both as a thriller and as a morality play.