The culture of Holy Fool is a cultural phenomenon peculiar to Russia.
Usually, the saints and fools are sloppy in appearance, grotesque in behavior, and live an ascetic life, but they can understand the future, have a deep thought, have a strong spirit of self-sacrifice, they can give up everything for the country and the nation, so they are deeply respected and loved by the Russian people, and they are the spiritual leaders of the people.
Russian literature and film are full of such images:
For example: Akaki Akachievich in Gogol's "The Coat", Sir Myshkin in Dostoevsky's "The Idiot", the priest in the movie "Lonely Island", Alexander in "Sacrifice"...
In 2014, the emerging Russian director Yuri Khrushchev was introduced. Bekov's work "The Fool of the Dangerous Building" has created a contemporary image of holy fool.
This is the third work of the post-80s director, and his "Police Dark Curtain" has won three Golden Jubilee Awards at the Shanghai Film Festival for Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Music.
The Fool won four awards at the 67th Locarno International Film Festival, including the Catholic Humanitarian Award.
By depicting a fragile, crumbling building, the film has become an "unshakable hard work" praised by the New York Times and other media.
Dima, a very ordinary plumber.
He was crammed into a dilapidated house with his parents, wife and son, living in terrible condition.
Dima and his father were not only the "strange things" of the family, but also the "strange things" of the entire Russian society at that time.
Why?
Because it's too upright.
The chair downstairs was always broken by a bunch of idle little hooligans, who would fix it again and again, and then get damaged again.
Today, when we see this scene, we still wonder: Is it just a public chair?
But they would still rush downstairs to reprimand the children, and they would still take out their tools and slender chairs.
Dima's father, who was scolded by his mother at the dinner table for "living in the dust for a lifetime of dignity" because he had worked for 30 years and had never stolen a single thing from the state.
In Russian society, where the people at the bottom steal from each other because of poverty and the bureaucrats at the top take bribes, integrity has become a dubious quality.
Dima was also called a "fool" for ridiculous reasons—
Because he wanted to pass the exam and become an architect, he chose to read all day and night.
At a time when it seems like everyone is taking the civil service examination, we will think, isn't this normal operation? Don't want to do exams?
But in Russia, if you express such doubts, you are likely to be "huh". Because here, it is normal to take the relationship and pull the network.
Dima's wife hinted that he was bribing the leader.
Dima and his father were completely unmoved, still adhering to the spirit of "not bending their waists for five buckets of rice".
One night, Dima received a call asking him to rush to a dilapidated building to repair the hot water pipe.
The maintenance worker who was originally in charge of the building had been drunk for three days and three nights, and could only temporarily move the rescue troops.
So who are the people living in this building?
There are drunken men who beat their wives and children to death (that is, the hot water pipe in his house is broken), there are women who swallow their breath, there are old people who are left unattended to eat and wait for death, there are middle-aged people who gather all day to gamble, there are young people who fight on the roof, take drugs and make love... All live in depravity and numbness.
In short, if you use the words of Imamura Shohei, this is a bunch of "maggots".
This dangerous building is the epitome of the entire Russian underclass.
When Dima arrived, he was startled into a cold sweat by the sight in front of him.
A crack appeared on the outside of the house from the foundation to the ninth floor, the load-bearing wall was also severely cracked, and the house had been tilted nearly ten degrees.
In his experience, the building lasted no more than 24 hours.
Dima asked the maintenance staff next to him: There should be two major repairs and several maintenance times in forty years, why has no one noticed this problem?
The man replied calmly: Because the maintenance fees allocated every year are only repainted once the wall is OK, and the rest are kicked in the pocket by the person in charge.
Dima asked again, the fire department also does not come to check?
The man laughed: The fire department has already done some work, and every time it is just a formality.
Dima was silent, and then went home nervously.
Who is he, a small repairman who can't even feed his family, and what can he do?
But when he and his wife and son were huddled in a small bed that didn't even have a place to turn over, they couldn't sleep.
More than two hundred families, 820 lives.
Dima got up again, hurriedly checked some information, and then rushed out the door in the puzzled eyes of his wife and parents——
He was going to find the mayor.
Then came one of the most touching scenes in the film, which lasted more than two minutes.
In the cold Russian night, Dima walked expressionlessly through the broken streets, his body frozen and shrunken into a ball. But with the accompaniment of Victor Cui's music, the footsteps became more and more determined, and the red clothes on his body seemed to be the only light in the world.
For the maggot-like 820 lives, he, a small plumber, found the female mayor who was celebrating her 50th birthday.
Unlike the Dima family and the dangerous building, the municipal government is full of lights, men and women are exquisitely groomed, and the lights, music, dance, and fundraising are staggered.
Of course, there is no shortage of rhetoric.
Everyone raised their glasses and shouted "Mom" to the female mayor on the stage, who resembled the big-headed queen in Alice in Wonderland, thanking her for making the city beautiful.
It's really blown, and it's ironic.
Zhumen wine smells of flesh, and there are frozen bones on the road.
More ironic in the back.
After Dima had found an opportunity to speak and explain the crisis of the situation to the female mayor, she immediately summoned the heads of various departments who were drinking and going back and forth.
Then they got together and started blaming each other.
The Minister of Housing and Public Utilities swallowed maintenance money, lived in a mansion, raised a son who only knew how to squander, and drank heavily all day.
The medical department sells antibiotics and treats patients with roadside weeds.
The police station is a triad, as long as you give money, you can do anything.
The Fire Department has not done anything serious for several years, and the minister has been busy all day long with money from approval documents, greedy for funds allocated by the city to update and maintain fire fighting equipment.
A good official appearance.
At first, the female mayor did try everything to accommodate the 820 people, and even asked a house developer to lend him a new building, but was refused.
At this time, the accountant calculated that the municipal government's deficit in the resettlement fee was as high as more than 100 million yuan.
Just as the mayor was in a hurry, the bald political broker next to him said with mockery:
The mayor, suddenly realized, ordered that the two officials in the know be killed and made scapegoats. Then burn all the relevant materials and wait for the building to collapse, leaving the 820 people inside to be buried alive.
Sigh, it is better to listen to Jun's words than to read ten years of books.
Dima, who was about to be exterminated, was let go by the killers who still had a conscience, and warned him to flee the city immediately with his family, otherwise he would be killed.
Dima didn't leave, he stayed, knocking on the door door by door, telling them that the building was about to collapse.
He roared, putting his life out of the way.
However, when he successfully gathered everyone downstairs, people thought that Dima was playing a prank because they had waited for a few minutes for the building to collapse.
So after punching and kicking Dima, he returned to the dangerous building.
In the final shot of the film, Dima, dressed in red, is like the only hope in this hopeless dark society, but is eventually beaten by insensitive, ignorant people and curled up under the dangerous building.
Jesus saved the world with truth and love, but was crucified by the world.
Xia Yu, the revolutionary in Lu Xun's novel "Medicine", was eaten as an adult blood steamed bun.
When the holy fools paid for their lives and still could not wake up the fools, the country rotted from its bones.
In recent years, Russian films that have attracted international attention, such as "Leviathan" and "Survival", have a strong sense of self-reflection. After the Cold War, Russians fell into a state of spiritual disorientation and social pathology, and the interests of individuals and regimes were often in a hostile relationship.
Unlike Leviathan, The Fool of the Dangerous Building starts from the details of society, using a big arm that will fall to metaphorically describe the whole society, in order to show the thinking of problems such as the degeneration of human nature and the corruption of the system.
The film style of the film combined with the realistic pursuit of documentary and dramatic artistic assumptions, the deep self-blackening technique, the director uses The "stupidity" of Dima alone, alluding to the real stupidity of the people at the bottom and the high-ranking officials.
In the face of such a very real movie, even if it is shot in Russia, we will still watch a cold sweat.
Mr. Lu Xun once wrote in "Hot Wind":
"May the young people of China get rid of the cold air, just go upwards, and do not have to listen to the words of the self-destructive and self-abandoning people." Do things that can be done, make a sound that can be heard. If you have a little heat, you can make a fire, and you can also emit a little light in the dark, without waiting for the torch. After that, if there is no torch: I am the only light. ”
Therefore, even if we cannot be holy fools, do not mock and trample on the efforts of others, and do not live like pigs.
(Rotten Tomatoes Movie Editorial Department: Mao Mao)