The Healing Effects of Self-Praise

Renowned writer Abel Znorko, a Nobel Prize laureate in literature, lives in voluntary isolation - far from people, in his luxurious cabin deep in the forest. His reason is love: he wants to escape from it, to deny its power. He enjoys solitude, yet drowns in it at the same time.

One day, Nicolas Gobert arrives - a journalist from an obscure regional newspaper. He has traveled all the way from France to speak with Znorko about his latest novel, Denied Love - a book composed of intimate love letters addressed to a mysterious woman with the initials H. M. What seems like an ordinary interview gradually transforms into a psychological duel between two men with completely different views on life, relationships, sexuality, and the nature of love. Znorko treats his guest with contempt and behaves chaotically, almost deliriously. But Gobert pursues his goal like a bulldog - and with each new question, it becomes clearer that he did not come for journalistic work.

Truths surface that shatter the carefully constructed identity of both men into fragments of half-truths, self-deceptions, and assumptions. Both share an unspoken secret - one knows it, the other has no idea. Their confrontation leads them to the threshold of thoughts about being and non-being, to discoveries they will have to live with from that moment on.