One of the most gripping films screened at this year’s Cairo International Film Festival was The Fool by promising young director Yury Bykov. The film is a dark gripping drama about a man adamant on safeguarding his morality and integrity despite the corruption that infests the world around him.

Dima Nikitin (Artem Bystrov) is a plumber, who is called to make an emergency pipe repair in ‘Site A’, a giant run down building that houses 820 people living in miserable conditions. He is studying construction on the side in order to get promoted and that’s why he is able to discover that the building will fall imminently. But night has fallen and he must warn the local officials in order to avoid this disaster.

The film whose events span a few hours in the night is about a world uncovered as city officials decide what to do about the impending catastrophe. As events unfold, Dima gets an insight into the lives of the ruling class and the festering corruption that binds them.

A shadowy tungsten lit ambience prevails throughout the film. The sound mixing is precise and masterful. Entrancing performances were given by all the actors and in particular Natalia Surkova, who plays the role of mayor Nina Galaganova, a secretary who rose to prominence from the slums.

The visuals, the sound and the riveting story create a hypnotic effect that transports us into the world before us. The town seems more of a Tsarist Russia painted by Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy than a modern day depiction. We look at the world of Russian politics through Dima’s eyes as the depths of the political dynamics unravel.

The story is filled with symbolic dialog, uncovering layers of reasoning for each character. In one instant takes a hard look at what corruption does every day. The narrative enforces a dividing line between ‘nobodies’ and ‘somebodies’, between those who care for their own and others who care beyond their immediate ‘somebodies’.

The conversations were direct, metaphoric to the entire state of Russia. The building itself resembles the entire country about to collapse with no one ready to deal with that possibility. Corruption was not simplified as heartless unfeeling drive towards evil, it has its own meaningful practical reasons and ones you can sympathise with. 

“If you can’t take what you need, you’d live like a worm in the shit,” as was expressed by one of the characters.

It is refreshing to see the semblance of a conscience somewhere in these circles, something we are given no traces of in real life. Yet even in the presence of a conscience, history and current realities have their own inputs to make. The presence of someone with a conscience is palpably unsettling to those who have compromised on values.

The dilemma is complicated, because very little is presented that justifies caring for others in the picture. Some of the inhabitants of the building are ‘punks’ and addicts, lost souls to a lost cause. Why would anyone stand up for such people particularly against vicious ‘seasoned’ officials who have acquired empires built on blood and misery of others?

Dima is the fool. He is a fool to think that he can survive in a world where almost every voice tells him he must be like others, he must steal, he must compromise those imaginary ‘values’ that he has. All we see before our eyes are losses and yet he persists? Why? There is nothing tangible to be gained.

He continues on his path, unmoved by everything that the world tells him but perhaps with one thought running through his head and utters when pushed, “We live like animals and die like animals because we’re nobodies to each other.”

The Fool is a gripping, hypnotic picture that traverses the world of corrupt local officials facing a crisis. As the crisis unfolds we understand the depth of their corruption and what’s more, the lengths they would go to in order to protect their empire. The picture tells the story of a revolutionary, determined not to lose his humanity despite everything that asks him otherwise, but a revolutionary trying to retain his integrity in a land flooding with theft and corruption is perhaps a fool.