House of Fools
|
Our Price: $37.69 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $6.55 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of House of Fools
Movie Review: Intensely Good and Beautiful Based on an Intense True Story
Summary: 5 Stars
The beautiful images, sophisticated expression of mental illness without making it too depressing, and the perfect timing of story development make this film one of the best I have seen. The intense content and equally intense beauty mix together, forming the uniqueness of this film. It is based on a true story, triggering me to think and imagine how it would actually have been.Movie Review: Awesome.
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent film. Everything from the story line to acting is absolutely outstanding. In fact, I have a really hard time coming up with something negative to say... The only thing that I can pick at is the scene where a helicopter falls to the ground - it was obvious that the fall was staged. But other than that small technical nitpicking, it's an awesome film.Movie Review: War visits an insane asylum
Summary: 4 Stars
HOUSE OF FOOLS, a Franco-Russian production, views war through the windows of a mental hospital.
Zhanna (Yuliya Vysotskaya) is a patient in a Russian asylum located in a war zone between Chechen freedom fighters (or bandits, depending on one's point of view) and the Russian military. In happier times, a favorite habit of the inmates is to gather at a second floor window after darkness and watch a passenger train cross a nearby bridge on its scheduled daily run. While Zhanna plays her accordion, the watchers imagine (and the audience sees) the train to be a brightly lit conveyance carrying all of them as guests at a festive meal in the dining car. In Zhanna's imagination, the gala affair is a wedding banquet for herself and the love of her life, the American singer Bryan Adams (who plays himself). Then, one day, the trains stop running, outside communications are cut, and the entire hospital staff flees for safety leaving the hospital's residents to the mercy of an occupying Chechen force.
HOUSE OF FOOLS is an offbeat anti-war film that poses the question: which is crazier, war or life inside an insane asylum?
Vysotskaya, who recently starred in the HBO remake of THE LION IN WINTER as Henry II's mistress, the French princess Alais, turns in a bravura performance as the beguiling Zhanna, who's charmingly disengaged from reality regardless of circumstances. At one point, one of the rebels, Ahmed (Sultan Islamov), jokingly offers to marry her if she'll appear that night at the Chechens' living quarters. Zhanna believes him, and gets her fellow inmates to believe also. So, all spend the day getting the former ready with the best dress to be found (a delicate slip), full make-up, and a floppy, wide-brimmed sun hat. Off she goes to meet her new boyfriend while feeling guilty that she's betraying Adams.
But Zhanna's time with her new beau is rudely interrupted by the return of the Russian army. This segment of the film provides some of the best and most surrealistic visuals: Zhanna madly playing her accordion in the hospital forecourt while determinedly ignoring a military helicopter that crashes and explodes in the near background; Zhanna in her room fixated on pictures of her and Ahmed while oblivious to a female Chechen sniper shooting out her window. When particularly stressed, Zhanna's mind completely detaches to an imaginary parallel universe in which Adams sings and dances with her.
This isn't the best anti-war film on celluloid, but it is a fine introduction to the work of Vysotskaya if you've never seen her before. She's the best reason to watch, although the character actors playing the other inmates are all excellent and you're left wondering where Central Casting found them.
The creators and director of HOUSE OF FOOLS get an "A" for a different perspective on war. The film is, ostensibly, based on a true story.
Movie Review: Great Russian Import
Summary: 4 Stars
"House of Fools" deserving received an Oscar nomination for 2002's Best Foreign Film. It combines war action, drama, and fantasy wonderfully. The plot was written beautifully. They desplict the true story of a woman staying in a mental institution while in the middle of the Russian-Chechian War. Her high spirits are the only hopes of everyone else's survival. The writer's creative side shines in the scenes of her dreams about Bryan Adams. The creates another war: her love for Bryan Adams vs. her newfound love for a war soldier. Such conflicts combine as one brilliantly. Yuliya Vysotskaya, the lead actress, played her role emotionally. She could become a worldwide success someday with such level of talent. All other actors also played their roles wonderfully. The special effects in the war fighting scenes were created realistic looking. The elaborate scenes desplict the realisms of war gruesomeness. This allows the characters' deathly fears to be expressed much more. Such movie quality makes "House of Fools" worth watching. Many will enjoy this regardless of genre favorite.Movie Review: very unique film
Summary: 4 Stars
House of Fools provides a very unique perspective of life in a corner of Russia - in a psychiatric hospital on the Chechen border. Based on a true story, the hospital inmates are surprised by reality when war reaches their doorstep and the nurses and doctor abandon the facility.
The lead character, Janna, is convinced she is engaged to singer Bryan Adams. His frequent appearances in her fantasies, singing If You Love a Woman, provide comedic interludes among the serious topics of psychosis and war. As the Chechens use the hospital facilities as a base, we see their interactions with the patients and watch Janna fall in love with a Chechen fighter.
While the film portrays the Chechens rather sympathetically, its larger message transcends ethnic groups or military factions, questioning the boundaries between sanity and insanity, especially in times of war.
A unique film combining comedy, realism and fantasy, this Russian film is a classic.