As you watch the impressively tortured Vladimir Ilyin play a psychologist turned mental patient in this Anton Chekhov update, you wonder how the great Marcello Mastroianni (originally attached) would have sashayed his way into madness. No matter: the script, several decades old, has found an absorbing treatment here — a Blair Witch–like collage of interviews, recollections and creepy conversations that scrape the far edge of metaphysical uncertainty. After some upsettingly authentic interviews with patients confined to a ruined institute, we meet Ragin (Ilyin), staring into the shallow distance on his cot. The movie charts his descent, and it’s the suggestive strength of this material — mainly Ragin’s thoughtful chats with the bitter, brilliant Gromov (Vertkov) — that gets you thinking he might actually be evolving, not unraveling. Ward No. 6 gets the Chekhovian tone just right.

Time Out

This screening is supported by Aiken Promotions.