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 in the middle of nature. His reason is love: he wants to escape from it, to deny its power. Instead, he drowns in his own loneliness.

One day, Nicolas Gobert appears at his door - a journalist from an obscure regional newspaper who has traveled all the way from France. He wants to talk about Znorko's 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. Despite all their differences, they share an unspoken secret - one knows about it, the other has no idea.

Znorko despises his guest and behaves chaotically and confusedly. But Gobert pursues his goal like a bulldog, and with each new question it becomes clearer that he didn't come for journalistic work. Truths surface that shatter the carefully constructed identity of both men into fragments of half-truths, self-deceptions, and assumptions - until they both reach the very threshold of thoughts about being or non-being.