Movie Review: House of Fools

This is an excellent movie that criticizes the war on Chechnya. It is at once more critical of the Russian campaigns in Chechnya than all the so-called critical American movies could be of the Vietnam War. For one thing, unlike the extremely narcissistic and American-centric Vietnam movies, the House of Fools actually shows Chechens and develops Chechens characters as "human beings" just like, or even more than, the Russians. We cannot even imagine seeing a fully developed Vietnamese character in a Hollywood movie on Vietnam; simply because our Nazi spirited directors do not dare think of Vietnamese, or Arabs, or any people who came under American occupation, as being fully human. The favorable comparison with American war movies aside, the House of Fools takes a "real" story from Chechnya and turns it into a really interesting movie with less existential angst than a Western European movie with a similar theme would, but without losing any of its critical value either. Life continues under war conditions, and humanity is not suspended as some would like to/ wish to think. War need not expose the heart of darkness, but rather, exposes the innate absurdity of especially the kind of war that Chechnya represents.