Synopsis
After finishing
Rashomon,
Akira Kurosawa immediately turned to one of the most daring, and problem-plagued, productions of his career.
The Idiot, an adaptation of
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s nineteenth-century masterpiece about a wayward, pure soul’s reintegration into society – updated by Kurosawa to capture Japan’s postwar aimlessness – was a victim of studio interference and, finally, public indifference. Today, this "folly" looks ever more fascinating, a stylish, otherworldly evocation of one man’s wintry mindscape.
