Ward # 6

Director: Aleksandr Gornovskiy, Karen Shakhnazarov
Cast: Vladimir Ilin, Aleksey Vertkov, Aleksandr Pankratov-Chyornyy
Russia, 2009, 83’, color
Russian with Turkish subtitles

A bold modern day interpretation of Chekhov's story, Ward #6 is based on an actual incident, in which the director of a mental ward winds up becoming a patient on that very ward. The gradual estrangement of Dr. Andrey Ragin was used by Chekhov as a metaphor for a man's disappointment with the promises of science; in Karen Shaknazarov's version, (based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Alexander Boraadyansky) that disappointment might be read as an increasingly loss of faith in the nation's future. Shot in a real asylum in a vibrant, documentary like style, the film was made in record time (only four weeks) and has went on to be a major box office and critical hit in Russia.

"Fragmenting Chekhov's descriptions and putting them into the mouths of characters in mock interviews, juggling chronology, inserting silent homemovie footage and finally abandoning narrative altogether, the helmer deconstructs Chekhov to dazzling effect..."

Ronnie Scheib, Variety