Down House offers a 'modern' reinterpretation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "The Idiot," set in Russia at the turn of the millennium. This film successfully captures the absurd atmosphere of the era while retaining the core message of one of the greatest novel of all time.
It feels like a collision between Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" and Chekhov's "Ward No. 6," imbued with a blend of self-irony and profound sadness. It sends the message that to live in Russia, one must be mentally ill and yet kind, intelligent, sarcastic, and pure - loving it and hating it simultaneously, tormented by it, and finding peace in it.
It reveals the main point of Russia - an internal conflict, which makes some people great and some so very shallow.
It feels like a collision between Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" and Chekhov's "Ward No. 6," imbued with a blend of self-irony and profound sadness. It sends the message that to live in Russia, one must be mentally ill and yet kind, intelligent, sarcastic, and pure - loving it and hating it simultaneously, tormented by it, and finding peace in it.
It reveals the main point of Russia - an internal conflict, which makes some people great and some so very shallow.