AllMovie

The setting for this off-beat drama of love and jealousy is the Pushkin Poetry Festival in Boldino. Liosha (Oleg Yankovsky) and his wife Tania (Tatiana Drubich) are walking through the plush forest around Boldino when a mysterious figure pops up from behind a tree and asks the couple a question on an esoteric point of Pushkin scholarship. From that strange beginning, the man, whose name is Klimov (Alexander Abdulov), starts to ease himself into the couple's private space, and trouble ensues. Complementing this story is the festival itself, enactments of Pushkin's works, and emotional debates among the festival-goers over the meaning of his poetry.