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Set in a psychiatric hospital during the
Chechen conflict in the war-torn republic of Ingushetia, Andrei
Konchalovskii's House of Fools offers the familiar metaphor of
madhouse as societal microcosm. As Chechen and Russian troops take turns
occupying the mental institution, the film follows the more stable
inmates' attempts to preserve order in the power vacuum created by the
absence of their good-natured doctor, who goes off in search of buses to
evacuate them. Between scenes that depict the absurdities of war, the film
revolves around a pair of unlikely relationships: the first is between
Zhanna, an endearing female patient, and Akhmed, a Chechen soldier who
proposes to her in jest; the second relationship emerges out of Zhanna's
romantic fantasies in which she believes she is engaged to Canadian
pop-star Bryan Adams. As the film progresses, it finds a balance between
the pervading war, the music video-like interludes of Adams, and the
disorder that threatens to erupt out of the insanity of the hospital and
ongoing conflict.
 In contrast to the outside world, the
hospital remains a place of humanity and kindness even as shells burst
through the institution's walls. Throughout the chaos, the patients
demonstrate such an ability to care for each other that, in comparison
with the soldiers' cruelty towards one another, the old question
inevitably arises concerning who in the madhouse is insane. The comic
relief provided by the inmates relies on the stock nature of the
characters: the dwarf, the effeminate Goga, the trouble-maker Makhmud,
Vika the diehard communist, and Zhanna's sex-crazed roommate, Lucia.
Nonetheless, the plot coheres in a compelling way around Zhanna, played by
Iuliia Vysotskaia, Konchalovskii's wife. As she naively leaves the
institution to marry Akhmed, she returns the film to the realia of war
when she enters the Chechens' camp. These elements are as internal and
important to the film's spirit as the stereotyped characters are. The film
is a nightmare that does not horrify but rather affects the viewer with
the ironies of war. In place of outright depictions, the film offers only
visions of war. Likewise, madness is not exclusive to the community of
patients, but rather it is a relative condition that grows out of the
film's more ironic moments. While negotiating the sum to be paid for a
dead soldier's body, a Russian and a Chechen commander discover that they
served together in Afghanistan. Their camaraderie, however, is shattered
by an exchange of fire accidentally triggered by a Russian soldier.
Akhmed's search for asylum among the mental patients at the film's
conclusion suggests that the insanity of the institution is preferable to
the madness of the world just outside the hospital.
According to Konchalovskii, House of Fools
was inspired by a news report about an actual mental institution located
in Chechnya that was overrun by Russian and Chechen soldiers. Into this
story Konchalovskii injects the balm of music and love. Zhanna's accordion
playing and Adams's cameo appearances compensate for the dreary walls of
the hospital. The switch from low-color to high-color shot exposures when
the musical interludes begin suggests a sharp directorial dynamism that
ultimately sustains the illusion that a war is raging outside the
institution's walls.
Tim Schlak
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