Review of the film "House of Fools" (2002)

Film Review


The fate of the film "House of Fools&Andrei Konchalovsky in Russia was reminded of the fate of "Mazepa" Yuri Ilyenko in Ukraine. Before being released in wide Russian distribution, the film managed to receive the Grand Prix of the Venice Festival and "advance" from Russia to the "Oscar" in the category "Best Foreign Film". But patriotic Russian criticism is in a hurry to throw into the "House of Fools" more stones.

The plot of the film takes place in a psychiatric hospital that stands on the border of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Russian Russian medicine is based on the real events of 1995, when during the Russian-Chechen war, doctors left their patients unattended, and in the meantime, Chechens and then Russians came to the patients.

What are the Russian "feather sharks" throwing at Konchalovsky?

Firstly, political correctness, calculated in advance for international success. Chechens, you see, were portrayed as good guys who do not touch the sick, treat women gallantly, eat kebabs, sing a chorus of sad songs and dance lezginka. But Russians, when it's their turn to visit the hospital, behave nervously, use drugs, yell at patients, swear and arrange shootouts with their own in the corridors. Of course, in a country where a girl is considered a national hero, whose only dream is the opportunity to kill Chechens ("Sisters"), such a film may not soon be widely recognized. And no Russian director living on Russian soil and who is in his right mind would make such a movie. But Konchalovsky is already an American and can afford political correctness even in a deliberately exaggerated form.

Those who like political correctness (there are some) argue in detail the lack of professionalism of Konchalovsky's fulfillment of his good plan. They say that even the characters from a real psychiatric hospital were unconvincing, playing themselves, looked theatrical and banal. Konchalovsky's healthy and beautiful wife Yulia Vysotskaya, who played the main role of Jeanne, looked especially unnatural. I wonder what the patients themselves would say if they heard such a comment? They would probably be happy, because someone has the opinion that they are not crazy...

As in an ordinary communal apartment, hospital residents quarrel with each other, oppose "arbitrariness&doctors, they fall in love and have one common entertainment - watching a train passing under the windows. The train is for patients the epitome of a better life in freedom, but when they really have the opportunity to leave the hospital, they stay in the hospital, which is called "our house". Konchalovsky himself noted on this occasion that in his film "there is a fundamental difference from "Flying over the Cuckoo's nest" by Milos Forman: if we are talking about a prison from which you want to escape, then in the "House of Fools" - about the freedom with which to escape to prison."

As for Yulia Vysotskaya, in the end it's bad that directors like to shoot their wives. They probably marry them in order to shoot, and when they get bored, they marry others. And even if the only physical disadvantage of mad Jeanne was magically incorrect diction, but for the rest of the parameters, a simple Hollywood girl with a white Hollywood smile and fragile forms honed in gyms is clearly discernible in her.

It is her Jeanne, with her bright and altruistic outlook on life, who is the center of this crazy composition. Having learned to immerse herself in her romantic and musical dreams in the painful moments of life, the girl tries to immerse herself in her magical world and others with the help of playing the accordion and get rid of the problems happening around, whether it's a quarrel between roommates or flames and explosions in the hospital yard. And we can say that she succeeds: people stop quarreling, explosions are heard very close and do not fall into Jeanne and her friends, and at the same time the viewer "catches Jeanne's disease&and plunges into a world where ladies in chic dresses (also from Cerutti) dance around the real Bryan Adams.


By the way, about Bryan Adams. His participation in the film was also received by critics with a certain degree of skepticism: they say that Ricky Martin refused, so Adams was invited. I will not say that Bryan Adams is the only one in the world who could play the role of "the groom" of mad Jeanne, but the choice in his favor was not so accidental. Suffice it to recall that it was used for the soundtrack of "House of Fools&"Adams' song "Have you ever really loved woman" has already been the soundtrack to the film "Don Juan de Marco". In this film, Johnny Depp's character, just like Jeanne, was a patient in a psychiatric hospital and, just like her, was constantly in thrall to his romantic dreams, spreading this "infection" among others. So, apparently, there is something so "mental" in the song.", which forces directors to use it as a means of influencing the romantic component of the viewer's consciousness.

After all, Konchalovsky is in the "House of Fools" he uses such means quite widely and from time to time carefully knocks a tear out of the audience. Of course, many experienced moviegoers will find these techniques somewhat flat and too straightforward, but "House of Fools&"made according to the principle of "cinema is food for emotions". And this principle fits quite well into the concept of nomination for various international awards, such as the same "Oscar".

It is worth noting that despite the outright rejection of the "House of Fools&The film received 11 out of 14 votes from the Oscar Committee of the Russian Film Academy. While Alexander Rogozhkin's "Cuckoo", which was persistently drawn to the attention of the distributor of "Cuckoo" in North America, the Sonny Classic film company, received only 1 vote. It is really interesting why the Oscar committee ignored the recommendation of Sonny Classic, which has 7 Academy Awards and 22 nominations. Maybe because the film was produced by Nikita Mikhalkov, a member of the committee and the director's cousin? But Mikhalkov, like no other, known for his patriotic nationalist views, is a "House of Fools" - the picture is, to put it mildly, cosmopolitan and international. It turns out, as they say, patriotism is patriotism, but native blood is native blood.

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