NIRVANA

With their extravagant costumes and fantastic makeup, the main characters almost seem like extraterrestrials in contemporary St. Petersburg. Their environment is similarly unreal, they move around a rundown communal flat, dark alleyways, and murky clubs. Daylight is rare. The world of this superbly directed and photographed film is wholly remodelled yet absolutely believable. The plot centres on Alisa, a 20 year old nurse who moves to St. Petersburg when she gets bored with Moscow. It would be unfair to betray what happens next – suffice to say that NIRVANA lacks neither good looks nor nail-biting suspense.