Writer-director Andrei Konchalovsky's dun-colored anti-war fable may look more like TITICUT FOLLIES than THE KING OF HEARTS, but it's grounded in a similarly romanticized scenario, in which the cheerful madness inside an asylum pales next to the insanity of the war outside — in this case, the 1996 Chechen conflict. Inspired by a true story, the story unfolds in a small psychiatric hospital in the tiny Russian republic of Ingushetia. Located a few miles from the Chechen border, the sanitarium is home to a variety of colorful patients, including freckle-faced Janna Timofeeva (Julia Vysotsky), a delusional young accordion player convinced that Canadian pop star Bry...
Released:
2002
Rated:
R
Length:
104 mins