Viking Ltd. presents / movie of the Sverdlovsk cinema studio
Dream of a Ridiculous Man / screen version of a narrative by F. M. Dostoyevsky
Everything there was exactly like here...
but sparkled with some solemn and holy exultation.
Never in my life had I seen such beauty in a human on our earth.
Only in our children — in first years of their life.
With a single glance at their faces, I understood everything.
Everything!
It was a land not desacrated with sin.
It was inhabited by people who did not trespass.
I saw them with my own eyes, I cognized them
I loved them — and I suffered for them later.
Ah, you old chap. A dream...
is just delusion!
Hallucination.
But how can you make a Paradise? I don't know.
Because I'm not able to express it with words.
And at the same time — It's so easy. Imagine: one day...
everything would shape into it.
The key thing is —
love others as you love yourself.
That's the main principle.
Nothing else is needed.
It was last November when I comprehended the Truth.
It was exactly the 3d of November, and, since then, I remember every single moment.
I promised myself to commit suicide, and I would have surely done it,
if I hadn't encounter that little girl.
Sir, there! Mommy!
Sir!
But I don't care anymore, do I?
For in an hour or two, everything will fade away.
So why will she, or anything on earth, be important to me.
I am turning. Into. Zero.
Into the absolute zero!
(Come on, come on! / Your Excellency, will you, please? / Gee-up! / Here you go!)
Into the zero. / (He's a beggar, a sheer beggar!)
Into the absolute zero.
(No penny for you today, you owe to us!) / Into the absolute zero.
Who's here?
So life and universe now solely depend on me, right?
If a bullet runs into my head, the world will vanish. At least, for me.
I also had an idea at that moment: if I lived on Mars or on the Moon,
and did something disgraceful there, would I care from over here, or not?
And that was when I fell asleep.
I fell asleep insensibly,
as if continuing to do the reasoning on the same substances.
Who's here?
Ah... So there is life even behind the death's door .
Can this land be just like ours?
How can there be such a repeat -- and what for?..
It was a state of genuine love of each other.
Complete. Universal.
They had love, and they would give birth to children
but I never noticed any outbursts of that brutal lewdness that come upon nearly everyone on our earth —
upon anyone and every single one —
and that are nearly the sole origin of the mankind's sins.
But do I care if it was only a dream or not, if this dream heralded me the Truth.
How come my hetty heart and my freakish paltry mind could rise to such Revelation of Truth?
I say them myself!
I cognized them and I understood.
I loved them — and I suffered for them later.
And now I'm an object of mockery. They say it was only a dream.
But do I care if it was a dream or not, if this dream heralded me the Truth.
I saw the Truth.
I saw it, and I know that people can be beautiful and happy without losing the ability to live on earth.
And this faith of mine is exactly what they make fun of.
But it may have been not a dream.
So far, I kept it back, but now I'm going to say this truth, too.
The thing is that...
...I totally corrupted all their morals.
Yes, we are deceitful, malicious and unjust,
we know it.
But we have science
and we will use it to find the Truth again.
But this time, we will accept the Truth with full conscience,
for knowledge is superior to sensation
cognizance of life is superior to life itself
Every single one belongs to everyone else, and vice versa.
Who's here? Who's here?
Who's here?
They say, I was dreaming, deluded, hallucinating...
A dream? What is a dream?
You mean, our life is not what we see when we sleep?
Okay, let it be so.
But I wanted to extinguish the life that you celebrate so much, with suicide
And my dream,
it heralded me the new, the great, the revived life.
The end