Diary of a Madman

In a hard-hearted world riddled by prejudice and privilege, lowly bureaucrat and outsider Aksentii Poprishchin is intent on climbing the greasy pole to success. Alone and sequestered in an attic, he tries to escape the hopelessness of his existence by making entries in a diary lampooning those who have made his life a misery, acting these out via a series of hilarious vignettes and imaginative flights of fancy. It slowly emerges that the outside world is one he can't keep up with, where difference isn't tolerated and mental illness is shunned. As he becomes increasingly alienated, Poprishchin deteriorates into delusion, paranoia and finally, tragically, insanity.