Roman KACHANOV jr.
Роман КАЧАНОВ мл.
Roman KATCHANOV jr.
Russia, 2001, 95mn 
Colour, fiction
Down House
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Даун Хаус

 

 Down house

 Down House

 
Directed by : Roman KACHANOV jr. (Роман КАЧАНОВ мл.)
Writing credits : Roman KACHANOV jr. (Роман КАЧАНОВ мл.), Ivan OKHLOBYSTIN (Иван ОХЛОБЫСТИН)
 
Cast
Aleksandr BASHIROV (Александр БАШИРОВ) ...Ferdyshchenko
Fyodor BONDARCHUK (Федор БОНДАРЧУК) ...Prince Myshkin
Anna BUKLOVSKAYA (Анна БУКЛОВСКАЯ) ...Nastasya Filippovna
Ivan OKHLOBYSTIN (Иван ОХЛОБЫСТИН) ...Rogozhin
Artemi TROITSKY (Артемий ТРОИЦКИЙ) ...Totski
 
Cinematography : Mikhail MUKASEI (Михаил МУКАСЕЙ)
Production design : Yekaterina ZALETAEVA (Екатерина ЗАЛЕТАЕВА)
Music : Yevgeni RUDIN (Евгений РУДИН)
Produced by : Sergey CHLIANTS (Сергей ЧЛИЯНЦ)
Production : Film Studio.ru
 
Site : IMDb

Awards :
Special Jury prize Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2001

Note :
The title, based on contemporary Russian slang for "idiot" (derived from "Down’s Syndrome") and English "house" or "house music," can be interpreted as "insane asylum" or "music for idiots."

Plot synopsis
"<...>Placing their film in post-Soviet Moscow, Kachanov and Okhlobystin have updated the major characters and actions of Dostoevsky’s novel, while systematically travestying its serious religious and political themes with great doses of absurdism and crude physiological humor. Prince Myshkin (Fedor Bondarchuk), a computer programmer and lover of "house music," returns to his "historic homeland" after being "almost completely cured of a series of nervous illnesses" in the Swiss sanatorium of Dr. Schneider. He falls in with Rogozhin (Ivan Okhlobystin), a pistol-packing new Russian millionaire, a former komsomolka and femme fatale, Nastasya Filippovna (Anna Bulovskaia), the Ivolgins, Epanchins, and other minor characters familiar from the novel. Nastasya Filippovna must choose between three suitors, Ganya, Myshkin, and Rogozhin, while Myshkin is caught in a triangle of his own between Nastasya Filippovna and Aglaya Epanshina. The film concludes with Rogozhin’s murder of Nastasya Filipovna and the Prince’s relapse into madness. <...>
Anthony Anemone, KinoKultura
 

Commentaries and bibliography
Roman Kachanov: Down House (Daun Khaus) (2001), Anthony ANEMONE, kinokultura.com, 2004
 

Selected in the following festivals or events :
- International Film Festival of the Commonwealth Countries "Moscow Premiere", Moscow (Russia), 2009
- Open Russian Film Festival Kinotavr, Sochi (Russia), 2001