AllMovie

This melancholy love story of dependence and fear, which represents the first union between Kazakh and French filmmakers, examines an unambitious young man's obsession with a former ballet dancer. Adik, at 25, has not found his life's direction and so spends his days living in the street. The former ballerina Aijan is now an instructor in an Alma-Ata theater. She is sad because her children are growing up and leaving her. Her son is already in Paris, and now her daughter also wants to leave. One night as Aijan is heading home, she is accosted by Adik who tries to rape her. He fails and Aijan does not press charges. Adik begins to follow her. When he falls upon her doorstep in a drunken, feverish stupor, she takes pity and takes him into her apartment. It is the beginning of a complex love-hate-and fear, relationship.