Ljubov i drugije košmary

Alexei, whose face is never exposed during the entire film, is a dreamer, philosopher, moralist, aesthete and cynic. He is obsessed with women, voyeuristic filming and the Internet and is deeply fascinated by the gamut of sexual acts, including lesbian. He would have been shot for having a relationship with a married woman, but is saved by a hired killer – a strange creature named Lubov-Love. He ultimately chooses her over his new girlfriend, the sophisticated Aglaya. Memories of her follow him to the West where he now lives with a rich woman. In her arms, however, he doesn’t escape a predestined bullet. The world whose beauty and monstrosity he once filmed with such passion continues... The film’s video style allows the director to sophisticatedly combine stylised amateurism and the avant-garde with subtle self-irony. The latter comes across in the author’s attitude to himself, to women, to a bleak Russia and the superficial West, to the lifestyle of the ‘new Russian’ and to the poverty of the ‘humiliated and offended.’ (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)