What is it like when your reason goes AWOL and only returns a month later?

One day, the familiar and the ordinary elude him. He suffers a breakdown, loses his mind, and ends up in a psychiatric clinic. There he explores both the world and himself, with fractured words and an unbalanced intellect. The story takes place during the month of December. In the confused mind of the protagonist, time runs irregularly, under the sway of hallucinations and medication. He decides to kill time by writing a play about crazy people, a play in praise of madness, and manages to uncover helpful forces while doing so. The play is performed at the New Year’s celebration at the clinic – not exactly as planned, but it is performed.

The undervalued in society don’t have it easy, but when you hit rock-bottom, you find solid ground under your feet again – that’s the good of it. And there are interesting characters down there – characters crazy enough to say what they really think.

Juha Hurmes’s Der Verrückte is a winter journey through the human mind.