East of the West 2001 / Ljubov i drugie koshmari / Russia 2001
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.’
97 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Andrei Nekrasov
/ Screenplay Andrej Někrasov
/ Dir. of Photography Anatolij Lapšov/Anatoli Lapschov, Michael Goebel
/ Music Alexandr Marčenko / Alexander Marchenko, Gaetano Carri
/ Editor Kai Badenhausen
/ Producer Olga Konskala, Andrej Někrasov
/ Production Dreamscanner
/ Cast Olga Konskaja, Angelika Nevolina, Jekatěrina Urvanceva/Ekaterina Urvantzeva, Xenie Nazarova/Ksenie Nasarova
Andrei Nekrasov (b. 1958) studied film and literature in his home town of St. Petersburg as well as in Paris and Bristol. He has mainly worked on documentaries and television productions, but also served in 1985 as Andrei Tarkovsky’s assistant director on The Sacrifice. Filmography: The Prodigal Son (TV movie, 1991), Springing Lenin (short film, 1993), Love Is as Strong as Death (feature, 1997) and Lubov and Other Nightmares (Lyubov i drugiye koshmary, 2001).
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