BETRAYAL

Even during routine medical check-ups the possibility of nasty surprises is not ruled out. But no patient expects a doctor to break this kind of news. Out of the blue she tells her patient that her husband’s cheating on her – with the patient’s wife. From that moment on the man’s life lurches out of control. At first he’s reluctant to believe the words of a woman he never met before, yet he starts to eye his wife with increasing suspicion. He becomes more and more caught up in the doctor’s detailed descriptions of the adulterous couple’s activities, then begins an affair with the doctor, setting in motion a fatal chain reaction. The results are fearful, but he’s incapable of breaking free from the mysterious woman. A thriller about betrayal, sex and guilt, about the abysses of supressed emotions and the fateful connection between two people who remain strangers to each other. Kirill Serbrennikov’s account, delivered in images of disturbing beauty, is as dispassionate as it is upsetting. And, enigmatic though his film may be, it tells us a lot about the frosty reality of life in present-day Russia all the same.