Idiot, The

Aroview: Flawed but compelling adaptation of Dostoyevsky's classic novel of human frailty, in which a madman and war criminal (Mori), is released from an insane asylum a changed man, most importantly he is unable to lie.

This 'naive' quality unsettles the world of friends, lovers and relatives when he returns to his former life, leading to a chain of tragic consequences. Although dir. Kurosawa obviously had a deep affinity for the source material and imparts an enigmatic gravity to the narrative, this was cut down considerably by producers from its original 265-minute length. Consequently, knowledge of the plot of the original novel is something of an advantage.

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