About Love

Synopsis

“(…) The film is permeated with explorations of the ever-popular theme of love, and features a plethora of Russian movie stars, including Renata Litvinova, Vladimir Mashkov, Mikhail Efremov, and Evgenii Tsyganov. “About Love” preserves Melikian’s playful visual and narrative style, defies rigid genre prescriptions, and ultimately takes up the same questions as her earlier feature films — the role of geographic, digital, and cultural spaces in the formation and articulation of personal identities. (…) Each of the film’s five novellas, held together by a lecture about love delivered by Renata Litvinova, leaves a bittersweet aftertaste. (…) Fragile as it is, love in Melikian’s cinematic space has to contend with the mediation of technology that permeates the lives of its “residents”, who constantly feel the urgent and irresistible need to “share”, “tweet” and “like”. To “soothe” the eye of the viewer used to the contemporary multi-screen reality, the film’s frames often split into several smaller ones, in which the familiar filmic visuals compete with chat windows, timelines and selfies. Social media, dating apps, and video games function here as the main site of identity formation and self-representation. (…)” (Ellina Sattarova, KinoKultura)

Around The World in 14 Films 2016, presented by Sonja Heiss