Film

2002. 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. 104 minutes.