A Soviet mental ward where the patients are historical figures and laughter is the disease.
Vasily Kutuzov, the namesake of the famous commander, ends up in a mental hospital because of his talent for making up jokes. Everyone in his family had this gift, and many suffered because of it. The authorities didn't like that the Kutuzovs were bothering people. Vasily's neighbors in the ward are all famous people who left a mark in history. So he amuses them until the doctors decide to cure him of this "disease"...
Acting
Abdulov's manic charm carries every scene he's in.
Writing
Jokes within jokes about jokes — meta before meta was cool.
Director
Viktor Titov
Aleksandr Abdulov
Vasiliy Ivanovich Kutuzov
Armen Dzhigarkhanyan
Bruskov - sledovatel/glavvrach
Nina Usatova
Ulyana - zhena Vasiliya Kutuzova
Yakov Stepanov
Pavlik Balabanov - odnoklassnik Vasiliya Kutuzova
Andrey Vasilyev
Boris Sokolov
«Karl Marks»
Evgeny Filatov
«Lenin»
Vadim Lobanov
«Khrushchyov»
Mikhail Khrabrov
«Brezhnev»
Lev Lemke
«Stalin»
Ilya Oleynikov
«Gorkiy»
Anatoliy Ravikovich
«Einshtein»
Viktor Bychkov
«Chapaev»
Yuriy Stoyanov
«Imperator»
Nikolay Fomenko
«Betkhoven»/dama v restorane/garmonist/dirizhyor
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released during perestroika, this was one of the first Soviet films to openly mock psychiatric abuse as political repression — the 'punitive psychiatry' that institutionalized dissidents was still fresh memory.
The ward patients represent figures Soviet history tried to erase or control — the film asks who was truly insane: those who told jokes, or the system that couldn't bear them.
SU
